THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 
 
 ^\^^ SPEECH 
 
 kr 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. HENRY WILSON, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 IjST the senate, FEBRUARY 18, 1856. ,.,, 
 
 f 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE KEPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
 STEREOTYPE EDITION. 
 
 BUELL & BLANCHARD, PEINTERS. 
 1866. 
 
THE STATE OF AFFAIRS U KANSAS. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON. 
 
 A message from the President of the United States 
 was received by the Senate, enclosing a report 
 from the Secretary of State, on the existing state 
 Df afiairs in Kansas. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, the Senator 
 from Connecticut [Mr. Toucey] closes his 
 speech with the iissuraplion, ihat there niiiy be 
 tliose in the country who do not wish the 
 President to preserve order ; and he is pleased 
 to say, that, if the Executive docs so, their 
 " vocation" will be gone. Let me say to the 
 Senator from Connecticut, that the " vocation" 
 of those to whom he alludes is not fawning, 
 abject servility to power. No sir, they do not 
 
 " bend to power, and lap its milk." 
 
 If the Senator from Connecticut alludes to 
 those who have opposed the uncalled-for and 
 wanton repeal of the Missouri prohibition ; if 
 he alludes to those wlio condemn the policy 
 of the Administration in Kansas ; if he in- 
 tends to charge the intelligent, patriotic men 
 who sympathize with the wronged and out- 
 raged people of Kansas, bravely struggling to 
 preserve their firesldt's and altars, their prop- 
 erty and lives, against the armed aggressions 
 of lawless invasions from Missouri, with a 
 disposition to violate or resist the laws of the 
 country, or to cherioh sectional animc^iity and 
 strife, he makes a charge unsupported by even 
 the shadow of truth ; and here, and now to 
 his face, and before the Senate and ihe co.un- 
 try, I pronounce the charge utterly unfound- 
 ed. If he intends, sir, to insinuate a charge 
 of that character against me, I promptly meet 
 it, and here and now before the Senate I brand 
 it as it deserves. 
 
 The Senator from Connecticut, with an air 
 of confident assurance, calls for facts. Evi- 
 dently possessed with the vast knowledge em- 
 bodied in these documents sent here by the 
 Executive, the Senator assumes the air and 
 tone of one entitled to speak by authority, and 
 he invites us to deal in f^icts. Sir, he shall 
 have facts ; for it so happens that the friends 
 of those who are struggling in Kansas to pro- 
 tect their lives, their property, their all, against 
 unauthorized power and lawless violence, 
 know something of the facts which have trans- 
 pired there. All knowledge, sir, of affairs in 
 Kansas is not in the keeping of the Executive 
 
 and his Senator from Connecticut. The tree 
 of knowledge, sir, was not planted in the 
 Executive garden ; and I sometimes think, if 
 it had been, its forbidden fruits would have 
 been more secure than were the fruits of that 
 tree plucked by our first parents. 
 
 The Senator from Connecticut commends ns 
 to the consideration of this correspondence: 
 and the Senator from California [Mr. Wellkr] 
 asks us to print ten thousand extra copies of 
 it, to be scattered broadcast over the land. I 
 now say — and I can establish what I say be- 
 fore any committee of investigation, so that 
 no man can question the declaration — that 
 this correspondence utterly and totally mis- 
 states and misrepresents the state of affairs in 
 Kansas. These documents, sir, are made up 
 of telegraphic dispatches, of letters, of state- 
 ments, of orders, written by Governor Shan- 
 non and others, on the rumors of the hour, in 
 a large Territory, at a time when the people 
 were deeply agitated by all sorts of reports 
 that flew over the land in rapid succession. 
 We are called upon now to publish these ru- 
 mors — rumors that turned out to be e.x;agge- 
 rated or false — rumors recognised and admit- 
 ted to be false by the Governor of the Terri- 
 tory, in his conversation and in his treaty with 
 the citizens of Lawrence. Yes, sir, the Senate 
 is now called upon to print and send over the 
 country, as official documents, these stupen- 
 dous misrepresentations of facts. They will 
 carry a gigantic falsehood to the American 
 people. He who reads only these documents 
 has no accurate knowledge, no true concep- 
 tion, of the actual condition of affairs in Kan- 
 sas at the time covered by them. 
 
 The year of 1854 opened upon a vast terri- 
 tory, lying in the heart of the continent, ex- 
 tending from thirty-six degrees thirty minutes 
 on the south, to the possessions of the British 
 Queen on the north ; from the borders of Mis- 
 souri, Iowa, and Min* '^sota, on the east, to 
 the summits of the Rocky Mountains on the 
 west. Over that territory, larger than the 
 empire of Napoleon when, at the head of the 
 grand army, he gazed upon that "ocean of 
 flame" that wrapt the minarets, turrets, and 
 towers, of the ancient capital of the Czars, 
 the Republic, on the 6th of March, 1820, en- 
 graved in letters of living light the sacred 
 
words, "Slavery shall be and is forever pro- 
 hibited !" Slavery, with hungry gaze, glared 
 upon the forest and prairie, hill and moun- 
 tain, lake and river, of that magnificent re- 
 gion it was forever forbidden to enter. Fix- 
 ing its glittering eye upon that paradise, 
 consecrated by the nation to Freedom and free 
 institutions for all, hallowed forever to free 
 men and free labor, the Slave Power, in the 
 person of the late President of the Senate, the 
 soul of these border aggressions, demanded 
 that this heritage of free labor should be 
 opened to the withering footsteps of the 
 bondman. Sir, with hot haste you grasped 
 this domain of Freedom, and flung it to the 
 Slave Propaganda. Sir, your Administra- 
 tion, in answer to the stern protest of the free 
 laboring men of the country, whose heritage 
 it was, mocked them with the delusive promise 
 that the actual settlers were to shape, mould, 
 and fashion the institutions of Kansas and 
 Nebraska. Sir, two years have passed, and 
 your "squatter sovereignty" is proved a de- 
 lusion and a cheat. Laws, more inhuman 
 than the code of Draco, forced upon the ac- 
 tual settlers of Kansas by armed invading 
 hosts from Missouri, are now to be enforced 
 by United States dragoons. The Consti- 
 tution, framed by a Convention of the Peo- 
 ple, is spurned from the halls of Congress ; 
 the Convention that formed it is pronounced 
 " spurious" liy the Senator from Connecticut ; 
 and the people who ratified it are branded 
 as traitors by the Administration and its 
 subalterns. 
 
 By the theory of the Kansas-Nebraska act, 
 Mr.'President, 'the actual settlers were to de- 
 cide the transcendent question, whether Free- 
 dom should bless, or Slavery curse, the virgin 
 soil of those vast Territories lying in the cen- 
 tral regions of the continent. The sons of 
 the free States — of Puritan New England, of 
 the great central States, i\nd of the North- 
 west — men who call no man master, and who 
 wish to make no man a slave, were invited to 
 plant upon the soil of Kansas those institu- 
 tions that have blessed, beautified, and adorn- 
 ed the homes of their childhood. The sons of 
 the South — from regions once teeming with 
 the rich fruits of fields, now blasted, blighted, 
 and withered, by the sweat of untutored and 
 unrewarded toil — were invited to plant, if 
 they could, the institutions that had dishon- 
 ored labor in their own native States, upon 
 the unbroken soil of Kansas. Sir, the people 
 of the North and the people of the South had 
 a legal and moral right to go there, when they 
 pleased, how they pleased, and with whom 
 they pleased ; in companies or in single 
 families ; under their own direction, or under 
 the auspices of Emigrant Aid Societies, in the 
 North or the South. 
 
 Sir, the honorable Senator from Missouri, 
 [Mr. Geyer,] in his remarks the other day 
 upon the resolution of inquiry submitted by 
 me, made the extraordinary declaration that 
 the "disorders" which he admits have ex- 
 isted on the borders "are to be attributed to 
 an extraordinary organization, called an 
 
 ' Emigrant Aid Society ' — the first attempt in 
 the history of this country to tfike possession 
 of an organized Territory, and exclude from it 
 the inhabitants of other portions of the 
 Union." I am amazed that the Senator from 
 Missouri should make such a declaration on 
 the floor of the Senate. When and how did 
 the "Emigrant Aid Society" "attempt to 
 take possession of an organized Territory, and 
 to exclude from it the inhabitants of other 
 portions of the Union?" Will the Senator 
 tell us when that "attempt" was made? 
 Will he tell us where it was made? Will he 
 tell us how it was made? Here and now I 
 challenge the Senator to give us one single 
 fact to sustain the declaration he has so un- 
 justly made against men of stainless purity. 
 The Senator avows that men from his State 
 "have passed over the borders," but they 
 have done so (he tells us) "to protect the 
 ballot-box from the attempt of armed colonists 
 to control the elections there." When and 
 how were the ballot-boxes assailed by " armed 
 colonists " from the North? I call upon the 
 Senator from Missouri, I challenge any Sena- 
 tor, to furnish one fact, one single authenti- 
 cated fact, to sustain this assumption. 
 
 Sir, the Emigrant Aid Society of New Eng- 
 land has violated no law, human or divine. 
 Standing here, sir, before the Senate and the 
 country, I challenge the Senator from Mis- 
 souri, or any other Senator, to furnish to the 
 Senate one fact, one authenticated fact, to 
 show that the Emigrant Aid Society has per- 
 formed any illegal act, any act inconsistent 
 with the obligations of patriotism, morality, 
 or religion. Sir, the President of the United 
 States has arraigned before the country these 
 Emigrant Aid Societies. The organs of the 
 Administration have assailed them, and now 
 the Senator from Missouri here, on the floor 
 of the Senate, renews the assault. Sir, I call 
 upon, I defy any supporter of the Administra- 
 tion, anj- apologist of Atchison, Stringfellow, 
 and their followers, to give us one act of the 
 directors of the New England Emigrant Aid 
 Society hostile to law, order, and peace. I 
 know most of these gentlemen, thus wantonly 
 assailed, and I know them to be law-abiding, 
 order-loving, conservative men. I defy the 
 Senator from Missouri, the Senator from Con- 
 necticut, or the Chief Magistrate at the other 
 end of the avenue, to show, here or elsewhere, 
 that the Emigrant Aid Society ever violated a 
 law of this country', or performed an act which 
 could not receive the sanction of the laws of 
 God and man. Sir, they have sent no paupers 
 or criminals to Kansas. They have simply 
 organized a system bj- which persons wishing 
 to go to Kansas msij go in small companies, 
 and, by going together and starting at a 
 particular time and place, may have the cost 
 of their fore reduced about thirty-three per 
 cent. This company has built a hotel in 
 Kansas ; has sent some saw-mills there ; has 
 aided in establishing schools and churches. 
 That is the extent of their offence — no more, 
 no less. 
 
 Mr. President, on the 29th of July, 1854, 
 
withia sixty days after the passage of the 
 Kansiis-Nehraska act, a rueetincc was called at 
 Weston, Missouri, by the " Platte County 
 Self-Defensive Association." Resolutions 
 were adopted, declaring that the association, 
 whenever called upon by any of the citizens 
 of Kansas Territory, will hold itself in readi- 
 ness to assist in removing any and all emi- 
 grants who go there under the auspices of the 
 Northern Emigration Aid Societies. 
 
 Before the feet of the first emigrants who 
 went there under the auspices of the Emigrant 
 Aid Society pressed the soil of Kansas, this 
 "Platte County Self-Defensive Association, " 
 under the guidance of B. F. Striugfellow, pro- 
 claimed to the world its readiness to cross in- 
 to Kansas and remove actual settlers from 
 their new homes. Under the lead of this law- 
 less as.sociation, other meetings were held in 
 Western Missouri, and resolutions adopted 
 in favor of carrying Slavery into Kansas, 
 and in denunciation of emigrants from the 
 free States who should go there under the 
 auspices of the Emigrant Aid Societies. 
 
 On the 9th of August, more than two 
 months after the Kansas-Nebraska act was 
 passed, a few persons went into that Territory 
 from the East. They went there under the 
 auspices of that society referred to the other 
 day so unjustly by the Senator from Missouri. 
 Early in the autumn of 1854, the Missouri 
 guardians of Kansas crossed over into the 
 Territory, and, by force of arms, endeavored 
 to drive from their homes the few persons who 
 had begun the little settlement at Lawrence. 
 But these Platte County Association heroes 
 found a little band of about thirty New Eng- 
 land men, under the lead of Charles Robin- 
 son — the Miles Standish of Kansas — ready to 
 meet the issue with powder and ball ; and 
 they retreated to their homes preferring to live 
 to fight another day. 
 
 The Senator from Connecticut referred with 
 an air of triumph to the election which took 
 place on the 20th day of November, 1854. On 
 that day, Mr. Whitfield was elected — and tri- 
 umphantly elected — a Delegate from that Ter- 
 ritory. No one ever questioned the fact that 
 he had a majority of the legal voters of the Ter- 
 ritory on that day; but, in addition to that 
 fact, men familiar with the Territory declare 
 that he received the votes of more than one 
 thousand inhabitants of Missouri, who crossed 
 the line and voted on that occasion. 
 
 I hold in my hand, sir, a paper drawn up 
 and signed by General Pomeroy — a gentle- 
 man of intelligence, of personal honor, whose 
 veracity no man who knows him can ever 
 question. From this memorial, addressed to 
 Congress, I quote the following words con- 
 cerning the election of the 29th of November, 
 1854: 
 
 "The first ballot-box that was opened upon 
 ' our virgin soil was closed to us by overpow- 
 ' ering numbers and impending force. So 
 ' bold and reckless were our invaders, that 
 ' they cared not to conceal their attack. They 
 ' came upon us, not in the guise of voters, to 
 ' steal away our franchise, but boldly and 
 
 ' openly, to snatch it with a strong hand. 
 ' They came directly from their own homes, 
 ' and in compact and organized bands, with 
 ' arms in hand and provisions for the expedi- 
 ' tion, marched to our polls, and, when their 
 ' work was done, returned whence they came. 
 ' It is unnecessary to enter into the details ; it 
 ' is enough to say that in three districts, in 
 ' which, by the most irrefragable evidence, 
 ' there were not one hundred and fifty voters, 
 ' most of whom refused to participate in the 
 ' mockery of the elective franchise, these in- 
 ' vaders polled over a thousand votes." 
 
 An examination of details will reveal the 
 extent of this fraud. In the seventh election 
 district of Kansas, six hundred and four votes 
 were cast on the 29th of November, 1854. 
 Of these, Whitfield received five hundred and 
 ninety-seven — all but seven. Three months 
 afterwards the census was taken, and there 
 M-ere only fifty-three voters in the seventh 
 district. Who went there to vote? Organ- 
 ized, armed, disciplined men from the State 
 of Missouri ; and all the votes but seven in 
 that district were given for Mr. Whitfield. 
 Does the Senator from Missouri call that "pro- 
 tecting the ballot-box against armed colo- 
 nists?" In the eleventh district, on the same 
 day, two hundred and thirty-seven votes were 
 given. In February following, when the cen- 
 sus was taken, there were but twenty-fbUr 
 voters iu that district, which, three months 
 before, had given Whitfield two hundred and 
 thirty-seven votes — all but three of the whole 
 number cast. And within thirty days after 
 the census was taken, three hundred and 
 twenty-eight votes were given in this dis- 
 trict, having only twenty-four voters ; yet the 
 Senator from Missouri gravely informs the 
 Senate that Missourians only crossed over the 
 borders " to protect the ballot-boxes against 
 armed colonists" sent there under the au- 
 spices of Emigrant Aid Societies. That these 
 Missourians crossed the line and voted on that 
 day for Whitfield, no one doubted ; but he 
 had a majority of the voters of the Territory, 
 and /or that reason his electioji was not contested. 
 That is the answer to the Senator from Con- 
 necticut, who has built his argument on that 
 fact. 
 
 The character of this invasion will appear 
 in an extract from a speech made by one of 
 these modern heroes, (General Stringfellow, ) 
 who, according to the Senator from Missouri, 
 crosses over into Kansas " to protect the bal- 
 lot-boxes from the armed colonists" from the 
 free States. This speech was made just before 
 the election of November 29, 1854, to which 
 the Senator from Connecticut has referred 
 with so much confidence, at St. Joseph, Mis- 
 souri. In that speech. General Striugfellow 
 said : 
 
 "I tell you to mark every scoundrel among 
 ' you that is the least tainted with Free-Soil- 
 ' ism or Abolitionism, and exterminate him. 
 ' Neither give nor take quarter from the 
 ' damned rascal. I propose to mark them in 
 ' this house, and on the present occasion, so, 
 ' that you may crush them out." 
 
6 
 
 '' Crush them ont" is the language. You 
 tvill remember, sir, that the Attorney Gener- 
 al of the United States — a man who s])ent the 
 dew of his j'outh and the vigor of his early 
 manhood in assailing Democratic statesmen, 
 and who is now giving the mature years 
 of his life to undermining and perverting 
 Democratic principles — sent an edict to Mas- 
 sachusetts, pending the election in 1853, that 
 the President "was up to the occasion," and 
 intended " to crush out the element of Aboli- 
 tionism." General Stringfellow, like the 
 President, is "up to the occasion." He has 
 caught up the word of the Attorney General. 
 He is going to mark the Free-Soilers, he say.«, 
 that you may "crush them out." I think his 
 success, sir, "will be about equal to the success 
 which followed the efforts of the President and 
 General Gushing, in "crushing out the ele- 
 ment of Abolitionism." The elections of the 
 last two years have shown who is the crusher 
 and who is the crushed. General Stringfel- 
 low continues : 
 
 " To those who have qualms of conscience 
 ' as to violating laws, State or National, the 
 ' time has come when such impositions must 
 ' be disregarded, as your rights and property 
 ' are in danger ; and I adrise you, one and all, 
 ' to enter every election district in Kansas, in de- 
 ^ fiance of Reader and his vile myrmidons, and 
 ' vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. 
 ' Neither give nor take quarter, as our cause 
 ' demands it. It is enough that the slave- 
 ' holding interest wills it, from which there is 
 ' no appeal. What right has Goveri^or Reed- 
 ' er to rule Missourians in Kansas? His pro- 
 ' clamation and prescribed oath must be re- 
 ' pudiated. It is your interest to do so. 
 ' Mind that Slavery is established where it is 
 'not prohibited." 
 
 "Qualms of conscience as to violating laws. 
 State or National !'' No, sir, that will never 
 do! "Such impositions must be disregard- 
 ed !" " Every election district in Kansas must 
 be entered by one and all," and they must 
 " vote at the point of the bowie-knife and re- 
 volver 1" Is that the way these border gen- 
 tlemen pass over the line, according to the 
 Senator fromMissou.:, "to protect the ballot- 
 boxes against the armed colonists ?" 
 
 "Qualms of conscience about violating 
 laws, State or National," were given up, and 
 they "entered into every election district in 
 Kansas, in spite of the proclamation of Reed- 
 er," and made the election of Whitfield dou- 
 bly sure. The Senate will remember that the 
 Senator from Missouri assures us that Missou- 
 rians only crossed the borders to "protect 
 the ballot-boxes against the armed colonists " 
 from the East. Sir, I commend to the espe- 
 cial consideration of the Senator from Missou- 
 ri the advice of General Stringfellow, to give 
 up all "qualms of conscience as to violating 
 laws. State or National," and to "enter every 
 election district in Kansas." Is that the way 
 Missourians "protect the ballot-boxes over 
 . theJborders?" 
 
 Mr. BtTTLEE. AUo-w me to ask the Senac 
 
 tor's authority for the remarks of General 
 Stringfellow. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. I quote from a speech made 
 by General Stringfellow, i)ublishcd in a West- 
 ern Missouri paper, republished throughout 
 the country and never denied by him. Gen- 
 eral Stringfellow has since said, in a letter to 
 the people of the South, that if the Missouri- 
 ans had gone into Kansas and ruled it once, 
 they could do it again. The men in Western 
 Missouri who were the first to accept the ad- 
 vice of their leader, do not deny these things. 
 They openly proclaim their intentions, and 
 act upon them. ' Sir. I can respect the frank- 
 ness of crime, much more than the wriggling 
 eflbrts, by apology, inuendo, and assertion, 
 to falsify facts and to impeach the innocent. 
 
 Mr. BUTLER. I do not intend to deny 
 anything that General Stringfellow assumed 
 to say. I know General Stringfellow very 
 well, and I presume he would stand up to- 
 morrow and face the music. I do not sup- 
 pose that he would retreat, nor do I deny any- 
 thing which is imputed to him, except, i"t may 
 be, the bad taste of the language used in what 
 the Senator has read. [Laughter.] As to 
 his whipping Reeder, everybody knows it. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Well, sir, I do not wish to 
 contend with the Senator about the taste of 
 this border hero. 
 
 I proceed now with the facts. The census 
 of Kansas was taken, by the direction of Gov- 
 ernor Reeder, in February, 1855; and then 
 there were eight thousand five hundred inhab- 
 itants, and two thousand eight hundred and 
 seventy-seven legal voters, in the Territory. 
 At the ensuing election — on the 30th of March, 
 1855 — four thousand voters from the State of 
 Missouri passed into that Territory, and gave 
 their votes. Lawrence, according to the cen- 
 sus, was entitled to less than five hundred 
 votes. But, sir, nine hundred and fifty were 
 cast, although nearly one half the legal vo- 
 ters of Lawrence, if we are to believe the tes- 
 timony of some of their most respectable cit- 
 izens, refused to vote on that day. More than 
 eight hundred Missourians, armed to the teeth, 
 led by Colonel Young, a lawyer of Western 
 Missouri, went to Lawrence, the home of the 
 New England men so often assailed and so 
 much misrepresented in the documents be- 
 fore us. Colonel Young made a speech, de- 
 claring that he would vote or would shed his 
 blood. He took the precaution, however, to 
 swear in his vote. He had more regard for 
 his life than he had for his conscience. 
 
 Mr. YULEE. Will the Senator excuse me 
 for a moment? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. YULEB. I have been listening with 
 much interest to the Senator's remarks, and L 
 desire to ask him, as he proceeds with his 
 statements of fa-^t, to refer us to the authority 
 on which he relies. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, I state what 
 I have said on the authority of Mr. Hutchin- 
 son, a lawyer of Lawrence, and a rejected 
 Frise State member of the Legislature of Kau- 
 
Bas, elected in 1855, and now present in the 
 Senate Chamber — a man, sir, of intelligence, 
 of conscience, and of character. And what he 
 says is confirmed by the memorial of Gener- 
 al Pomeroy, to which I have referred, setting; 
 forth certain facts which transpired on that 
 day. I will read what this gentleman says 
 in regard to the Lawrence district : 
 
 "In the Lawrence district, speeches were 
 ' made to them by leading residents of Mis- 
 ' souri, in which it was said that they would 
 ' carry their purpose, if need be, at the point 
 ' of the bayonet and bowie-knife ; and one 
 ' voter was fired at, as he was driven from the 
 ' election ground. Finding they had a great- 
 'er force than was necessary for that poll, 
 ' some two hundred men were drafted from 
 
 * the number, and sent off, under their proper 
 ' officers, to another district ; after which, 
 ' they still polled from this camp over seven 
 ' hundred votes." 
 
 General Pomeroy says that in the fourth 
 and seventh districts, along the Sante Fe 
 road, 
 
 " The invaders came together in one armed 
 
 * and organized body, with trains of fifty 
 ' wagons, besides horsemen, and the night 
 ' before election, pitched their camp in "the 
 
 * vicinity of the polls ; and, having appointed 
 
 * their own judges in place of those who, 
 ' from intimidation or otherwise, fiiiled to at- 
 ' tend, they voted without any proof of resi- 
 ' dence. In these two election districts, where 
 ' the census shows one hundred voters, there 
 
 * were polled three hundred and fourteen 
 ' votes." 
 
 In the Leavenworth district, hundreds of 
 men breakfasted in Missouri, voted in Kansas, 
 and returned on the same day to Missouri. 
 While the voting was going on, one of their 
 leaders made a speech, in which he told the 
 Platte county boys that they must stand 
 aside, and let the Clay county IJoys vote first, 
 because they had the farthest to go in return- 
 ing to their homes ; and the Platte county 
 boys of Missouri stood aside, and allowed 
 the Clay county boys of Missouri to vote first 
 and go home. 
 
 This memorial declares that 
 
 ''Hundreds of men came together in the 
 'sixteenth district, crossing the river from 
 'Missouri the day before election, and en- 
 ' camping together, armed and provisioned, 
 ' made the fiercest threats against the lives of 
 ' the judges, and during the night called 
 'several times at the house of one of them, 
 ' for the purpose of intimidating him, decla- 
 'ring in the presence of his wife that a rope 
 ' had been prepared to hang him ; and al- 
 ' though we are not prepared to say that these 
 ' threats would have been carried out, yet they 
 ' served to produce his resignation, and give 
 ' these invaders, in the substitution, control 
 ' of the polls ; and on the morniug of the elec- 
 ' tion, a steamboat brought from the town of 
 ' Weston, Missouri, to Leavenworth, an ac- 
 ' cession to their number of several hundred 
 ' more, who returned in the same boat, after 
 ' depositing their votes. There were over 
 
 ' nine hundred and fifty rotes polled, besides 
 ' from one hundred to one hundred and fifty 
 ' actual residents who were deterred or di*. 
 ' fouraged from voting, while the census re- 
 ' turns show but three hundred and eighty- 
 ' five votes in the district a month before. 
 ' Not less than six hundred votes were here 
 ' given by these non-residents of the Territory 
 ' who voted without being sworn as to their 
 ' qualifications, and, immediately after the 
 ' election, returned back to Missouri, some of 
 ' them being the incumbents of important 
 ' public ofiBces there." 
 
 I will now, sir, quote what General Pome- 
 roy says of the election in the eighteenth dis- 
 trict ; and I ask the attention of the Senator 
 from Missouri to this statement : 
 
 " In the eighteenth election district, where 
 ' the population was sparse, and no great 
 ' amount of foreign votes was needed to over- 
 ' power it, a detachment from Missouri, from 
 ' sixty to one hundred, passed in with a train 
 ' of wagons, arms and ammunition, making 
 ' their camp the night before the election near 
 ' Moorestown, the place of the polls, without 
 ' even a pretext of residence, and returning 
 • immediately to Missouri after their work was 
 ' done, their leader and captain being a dis- 
 'tinguished citizen of Missouri, but late the 
 ' presiding officer of the Senate of the United 
 ' States, and who had bowie-knife and re- 
 ' volver belted around him, apparently ready 
 ' to shed the blood of any man who refused to 
 ' be enslaved. All these facts we are prepared 
 ' to establish, if necessary, by proof that 
 ' would be considered competent in a court 
 ' of justice." 
 
 General Pomeroy expresses the opinion, 
 
 " That not less than three thousand votes 
 ' were given by these armed invaders, who 
 ' came organized in bands with ofiicers, and 
 ' arms, and tents, and provisions, and muni- 
 ' tions of war, as though they were marching 
 ' upon a foreign foe, instead of their own un- 
 ' ofiending fellow-citizens. Upon the princi- 
 ' pal road leading into our Territory, and 
 ' passing several important polls, they num- 
 ' bered not less than twelve hundred men, and 
 ' one camp alone contained not less than sif 
 ' hundred. They arrived at their several 
 ' destinations the night before the election, 
 ' and, having pitched their camps and placed 
 ' their sentries, waited for the coming day. 
 ' Baggage-wagons were there, with arms and 
 ' ammunition enough for a protracted fight, 
 ' and among them two brass field pieces, ready 
 ' charged. They came with drums beating 
 ' and flags flying, and their leaders were of 
 ' the most prominent and conspicuous men of 
 ' their State." 
 
 How very considerate it was, Jlr. President, 
 in these '' prominent and conspicuous men," 
 with their baggage-wagons, and cannons, and 
 rifles, and drums, and flying flags, to lead the 
 men of Western Missouri over into the forests 
 and prairies of Kansas, to protect the ballot- 
 boxes from those dangerous men, the armed 
 colonists of New England ! 
 
 Sir, the gentleman from Connecticut wishes 
 
g 
 
 to know why the Seats of the legislators elect- 
 ed bj the Missourians were not contested. 
 I will tell him : Mr. Phillips, a young lawyer 
 of Leavenworth, not himself a candidate, took 
 measures to have the seat of the member from 
 the sixteenth district contested — and Avhat 
 was the result? He was taken over into Mis- 
 souri and lynched, because he dared, simply 
 on patriotic grounds, to dispute the right of 
 the member to his seat, into which he had 
 been voted by these armed men from Mis- 
 souri. 
 
 Sir, the whole power and patronage of this 
 Government, from the time when the Kansas 
 and Nebraska act went into operation to this 
 hour, has been given to crush out the freemen 
 of ELansas, and to plant the institution of 
 Slavery upon that virgin soil. Read the 
 papers which support the Administration in 
 that Territory, and what do we find? The 
 Squatter Sovereign says : 
 
 " We hope the Thirty-fourth Congress will 
 ' be the last Congress that will ever assemble, 
 'and that the Southern men coming into 
 
 * Kansas will be prepared to range Kansas in 
 'the Southern Republic." 
 
 The paper which made that declaration re- 
 ceives the patronage and support of this law- 
 abiding, liberty-loving. Union-saving Ad- 
 ministration, which the Senator from Con- 
 necticut is always the most prompt, the first — 
 and about the only — Senator here to support. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 Sir, I have before me an extract from 
 another of those Union-loving, law-abiding 
 organs of the Administration in Kansas, which 
 supports the law-and-order party there, of 
 which we read so much in the correspondence 
 before us. The Kicka-poo Pioneer — a paper 
 sustained by the friends of this Administra- 
 tion — gives us the following fine specimen of 
 its regard for law and order : 
 
 "The South must be up and doing; 
 ' Kansas must and shall be a slave State. 
 ' Mark what we say. Southern freemen ! 
 Come along with your negroes, and plough 
 up every inch of ground that is at this time 
 disgraced and defaced by an abolition plough. 
 ' Send the scoundrels back to whence they 
 ' came, or send them to hell — it matters not 
 
 * which destination ; suit your own conveni- 
 'ence. Sound the bugle of war over the 
 ' length and breadth of the land, and leave 
 ' not an abolitionist in the Territory to relate 
 
 their treacherous and contaminating deeds. 
 ' Strike your piercing rifle-balls and your 
 ' glittering steel to their black and poisonous 
 ' hearts ; let the war-cry never cease in Kan- 
 ' sas again, until our Territory is divested of 
 ' the last vestige of abolitionism." 
 
 The paper which utters such sentiments is 
 the supporter of the President, and the organ 
 and supporter of the policy which meets so 
 warmly the approbation of the Senator from 
 Connecticut. 
 
 The officers of the United States in the Ter- 
 ritory of Kansas — the judges, the district 
 attorney, the secretary, and the marshal — are 
 all Slave State men, and their influence has 
 
 been given in favor of making Kansas a slav9 
 State. Governor Reeder, who undertook to 
 protect the jieople in their legal rights, was 
 stricken down, under the pretence that he 
 b.ad been speculating in the public lands. 
 Of twenty-one officers of the Federal Govern- 
 ment in the Territory, nineteen are Slave State 
 men, and one is a Free State man ; but al- 
 ready he is marked by Atchison, and another 
 designated for his place. Within the last tea 
 days, men from Kansas have called upon the 
 Executive to remonstrate against this striking 
 down of a public officer, simply for the crime 
 of being in favor of free institutions. 
 
 [At this point the honorable Senator yield- 
 ed to a motion to adjourn.] 
 
 Tuesday, February 19, 1856. 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President 
 
 Mr. GBYER. If the Senator from Massa- 
 chusetts will allow me, I desire, before he 
 proceeds, to ask him a question. I under- 
 stood him to state yesterday, upon the au- 
 thority of General Pomeroy, that a former 
 presiding officer of this body (meaning, of 
 course, my late colleague) had entered Kan- 
 sas Territory for some unlawful purpose, 
 armed with bowie-knifes and pistols. 1 de- 
 sire first to know whether General Pomeroy 
 states that on his own knowledge ; and then, 
 at what time it was that he is supposed to 
 have entered that Territory thus armed ? 
 Will the Senator be good enough to answer? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, I very cheer- 
 fully answer the questions submitted to me 
 by the honorable Senator from Missouri. I 
 stated yesterday, on the authority of General 
 Pomeroy, that on the 30th of March, 1855, the 
 late President of the Senate entered the eigh- 
 teenth election district of the Territory of 
 Kansas, near Moorestown, and that be wa3 
 armed "with a bowie-knife and revolver 
 around him, apparently ready to shed the 
 blood of any man who refused to be en- 
 slaved." And this trustworthy authority 
 adds, " all these facts we are prepared to 
 establish, if necessary, by proof that would be 
 considered competent in any court of justice." 
 
 Mr. GEYER. Will the Senator allow me 
 to state mv information on that subject ? 
 
 Mr. WILSON. Certainly, sir. 
 
 Mr. GEYER. Mr. President, when that 
 charge was made yesterday, I was not pre- 
 pared to prove a negative ; therefore I did 
 not interrupt the Senator. I have since made 
 inquiries of the Representative in the other 
 House of the district in which General Atchi- 
 son resides, to ascertain from him whether 
 General Atchison had crossed the borders at 
 that time. He answered, " No ; he was not 
 there." I inferred, therefore, that General 
 Pomeroy had given the information upon the 
 authority of some one else, and not of his own 
 knowledge. The only time, so far as I have 
 been able to learn, when General Atchison f 
 crossed into Kansas at all during the period 
 
of any disturbance there, was the last one 
 which was mentioned in the report read be- 
 fore the Senate .yesterday. At tliat time it 
 was apprehended there wonid be a serious col- 
 lision and much destruction of life between 
 those who had collected at Wakarusaand the 
 citizens of Lawrence. At that time General 
 Atchison, tofjcther with some two or three 
 other e:entlcmen — his n'eijjfhbors — went over 
 for the purpose of persuading; those at 
 Wakarusa to forbearance. He counselled 
 peace. That was his errand at that time in 
 the Territory. So much was he indisposed to 
 any collision between the citizens of Missouri, 
 or those who are represented to have been 
 citizens of Missouri, and the inhabitants of 
 Lawrence, that he left his home for the ])ur- 
 pose of interposing as a peace-maker. After- 
 wards, it is true — after the pacification had 
 taken place, as mentioned in the report, and 
 he was about to return home — there was a 
 gallant captain of mounted men at Lawrence 
 who proposed to proceed and capture him. 
 He was, to the credit of the commandinsf ofli- 
 cer at Lawrence, restrained from doing so. 
 That is the only instance within mj' know- 
 ledge, and so far as I have been able to ascer- 
 tain from the Representative of his district, 
 when General Atchison crossed the border at 
 all. 
 
 Jlr. WILSON". I place, sir, the written 
 declaration of General Pomeroy. a gentleman 
 thoroughly conversant with affairs in Kansas, 
 and a gentleman of the strictest veracity, 
 against the statement^ of the Senator from 
 iklissonri. The facts stated in this memorial, 
 drawn up by General Pomeroy, have been 
 published to the world, and never to my 
 knowledge questioned before. That General 
 Atchison entered Kansas at that election, I do 
 not entertain the shadow of a doubt. That it 
 can be clearly established by persons of 
 veracity and character, lam assured by gen- 
 tlemen now in this city from Kansas. 
 
 Sir, I do not wish to do injustice to the 
 gentleman who so recently filled your chair. 
 When Congress assembled, in December, 1854, 
 he was not here; and you, sir, were placed in 
 the seat which the Senate had assigned to 
 him. lie came here afterwards, spent a few 
 weeks, and about the 1st of February left 
 the cajjital for his home in Western Missouri, 
 with the avowal that he went to look after 
 affairs in Kansas, and to organize for the 
 election to take place on the 30th of March. 
 General Atchison was the organizing, moving 
 spirit of that Missouri movement from which 
 all of these unlawful transactions have origi- 
 nated. 
 
 I congriitulate the Senate and the country, 
 that the honorable Senator from Missouri is 
 sensitive in regard to the position of General 
 Atchison. It is now admitted that there was 
 an unlawful invasion of Kans.as l\v excited 
 iind armed men, and that the late President 
 of the Senate left his home in Western Mis- 
 souri, and passed over into Kansas, and used 
 his personal influence with these men he had 
 once organized, to prevent their imbruing 
 
 their hands in the blood of the people of Kan- 
 sas, and making Lawrence a heap of ruins. I 
 congratulate the Senate and the country, that 
 the Senator from Missouri has made the 
 statement to which we have listened. 1 hope 
 it will go forth to the country, that the late 
 President of the Senate went over to Kansas, 
 not to aid Shannon in executing the laws, 
 but to restrain the men who were threatening 
 Lawrence with swift destruction. 
 
 When I yielded the floor yesterday for an 
 adjournment, I was speaking of the election 
 of the 30th of March, 1855. The result of that 
 election was, that the nineteen districts in 
 Kansas were carried by the Pro-Slavery party, 
 and that more than six thousand votes were 
 given in that Territory, where, thirty days 
 before, there were less than three thousand 
 voters. 
 
 The question was put yesterday by the hon- 
 orable Senator from Connecticut, why the 
 Governor gave certificates of election on that 
 occasion? I will simply say, that Governor 
 Recder, in the cases brought before him, did 
 refuse to deliver thecertificates; that he made 
 the refusal in the presence of the men who 
 claimed them, with bowie-knifes and revolvers 
 in their belts, and amidst threats of his life ; 
 and while he read the statement he held a 
 cocked revolver in his hand, for necessary self- 
 defence. There were a few devoted friends 
 around him, expecting to see him murdered 
 on that occasion. In the cases not at the 
 time contested, in the cases where at the time 
 no one dared to raise a question, in the cases 
 where at the time a contest was neglected, the 
 certificates were given. A new election wag 
 ordered in those cases where the certificates 
 were set aside, and, in pursuance thereof, 
 the people elected Representatives and Coun- 
 cillors, and commissions were issued to them. 
 They met on the 2d day of July, at Pawnee, 
 and both branches of the Legislature, without 
 exainiuing the facts, and positively refusing 
 to do so, voted out the men chosen by the 
 people of Kansas, and voted in the men 
 originally chosen by the Missouri invaders. 
 This Legislature, thus chosen, moved the place 
 of meeting from Pawnee to Shawnee Mission, 
 against the consent of the Gxivernor, who re- 
 fused afterwards to recognise it as a Legisla- 
 ture. They went on, and passed the laws 
 which are now brought here. Some of those 
 laws are as iuhuman as any code ever pre- 
 sented for the government of a conquered 
 people. 
 
 I wish to call the attention of the Senate 
 and of the country to some of those laws 
 forced upon the people who were allured to 
 Kansas by the assurance that they were em- 
 powered to shape their own institutions. 
 Here is a precious enactment: 
 
 " If any person print, write, introduce into, 
 'or i)ublish, or circulate, or cause to be 
 ' brought into, printed, written, published, or 
 ' circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist 
 'in bringing into, printing, publishing, or 
 'circulating, within this Territory, any book, 
 ' paper, pamphlet, magazine, handbill, or cir- 
 
10 
 
 'cular, containing any statements, arguments; 
 'opinion, sentiment, doctrine, advice, or 
 'inucntlo, calculated to produce a disorderly, 
 * dangerous, or rebellious disalFt-ction among 
 ' the slaves of this Territory, or to induce 
 ' such slaves to escape from the service of their 
 ' masters, or to resist their authority, shall 
 'li^ guilty of a felony, and be punished by 
 ' imprisonment, at hard labor, for a term not 
 ' less than five years." 
 
 This law, thus enacted, is the law that is to 
 be executed iu Kansas, if need be, by the sa- 
 bres of the United States dragoons. If the 
 men from the free Slates in that Territory 
 should print or circulate tliis sentiment, ut- 
 tered by the President of the United States, 
 on the 1st day of January, 1851, in the Con- 
 stitutional Convention of New Hampshire — 
 
 "I would take the ground of the non-ex- 
 ' tension of Slavery, that Slavery should not 
 ' become stronger." " What one thing is there 
 ' connected with Slavery that is not ob- 
 ' noxious?'' — 
 
 I say that, if these avowals were circulated 
 in that Territory, the person circulating them 
 might be denounced as circulating a speech 
 that was calculated to excite disaffection 
 among men held iu bondage. 
 
 If a slaveholder should find in the hand of 
 some one of his bondmen, who may have been 
 taught, in spite of legal prohibitions, to read 
 the ten commandments, the pregnant ques- 
 tion of the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, 
 "What one thing is there connected with 
 Slavery that is not obnoxious ?" Would he 
 not think it at least a dangerous "inuendo," 
 calculated to create "disaffection" in the 
 bosom of his slave ? And, sir. if in his wrath 
 he should make the discovery that a son of 
 the Granite State had "caused to be circula- 
 ted" this sentiment of the prominent son of 
 his native New Hampshire, would he not try 
 the virtues to be found in the term of five 
 years' imprisonment? If some slaveholder 
 should find in the hand of his fleeing bond- 
 man the speech of the Attorney General of 
 the United States, delivered in June, 1836, 
 against the admission of Arkansas, with a 
 Constitution making Slavery perpetual, 
 wherein I find these sentiments — " I do not 
 persuade myself that Liberty is an evil, or 
 Slavery a blessing." " Shall we be brutishly 
 dumb when it is sought through us to render 
 Slavery perpetual in new States ?" " I should 
 be false to all the opinions and principles of 
 my life, if I did not promptly return a per- 
 emptory and emphatic No ! when called upon 
 to accord ray sanction to a form of govern- 
 ment which perpetuates Slavery." Would 
 not the slaveholder deem it a "fixed fact," 
 that the man who circulated these sentiments 
 was "guilty of a felony," punishable with 
 five years of imprisonment? Ay, sir, if some 
 son of Massachusetts should be found circu- 
 lating the resolutions of the Democratic State 
 Convention in 1849, written by Benjamin F. 
 Hallett, then (Chairman of the National Demo- 
 cratic Committee, and now the President's 
 District Attorney for Massachusetts, declaring 
 
 that "we are opposed to Slavery in every 
 form and color, and in favor of Freedom and 
 free soil wherever man lives throughout God's 
 heritage" — a pretty broad declaration, that 
 includes Kansas — 1 say, that if these resolu- 
 tions, endorsed by Charles G. Greene, the 
 especial favorite of the President in New Eng- 
 land, as National Democratic doctrine, should 
 be circulated in Kansas by some son of Mas- 
 sachusetts, he would be subjected to the pun- 
 ishment provided for in this section. 
 
 Here is another section of this inhuman 
 statute : 
 
 " If any free person, by speaking or writing, 
 'assert or maintain that persons have not the 
 ' right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall 
 ' introduce into this Territory, print, publish, 
 ' write, circulate, or cause to be introduced 
 'into this Territory, written, printed, pub- 
 ' lished, or circulated, in this Territory, any 
 'hook, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or circular, 
 'containing any denial of the right of persons 
 ' to hold slaves in this Territory, such person 
 'shall be deeemed guilty of felony, and pun- 
 'ished by imprisonment at hard labor for a 
 ' term not less than two years." 
 
 Here is a law which punishes any freeman 
 as a felon who went into that Territory un- 
 der your organic law — under your " squatter 
 sovereignty" doctrine — with two years' im- 
 prisonment, if he shall circulate any paper 
 that shall "deny the right of any person to 
 hold slaves in the Territory under these 
 laws ;" and this is the law which the President 
 of the United States is so anxious to enforce; 
 and this is the law which the Senator from 
 Connecticut congratulates the country is to 
 be enforced ! 
 
 And, sir, if any person shall be arrested by 
 Governor Shannon for circulating in Kansas 
 any papers denying the right of any person 
 to hold slaves there, this code provides that 
 
 " No jierson who is conscientiously opposed 
 ' to holciing slaves, or who does not admit the 
 ' right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall 
 ' sit as a juror, on the trial of any prosecution 
 ' for any violation of any of the sections of 
 ' this act." 
 
 When the Legislature assembled, when it 
 turned out the men who had been legally 
 chosen, when it brought in the men imposed 
 on the Territory bj' armed invaders from a 
 neighboring State, when it removed to the 
 Shawnee Mission, when it was repudiated by 
 your Governor, sent there by this Administra- 
 tion, then it was that the freemen of Kansas 
 assembled in their primary meetings, and de- 
 clared against the legality of this Legislature 
 and its acts. A Convention of the People was 
 called. That Convention assembled, framed 
 a Constitution, the People ratified it, and that 
 Constitution is now submitted for the action 
 of the Congress of the United States. The 
 Senator from Connecticut denounces it as a 
 "spurious Convention." Sir, this Conven- 
 tion was the act of the People of Kansas, in 
 their sovereign primary capacity. They ac- 
 cepted the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. 
 They accepted the doctrines laid down by 
 
11 
 
 Mndison, by Jfarsliall, by Story, bj' Jndc:e 
 Wilson, by Buchanan and Wright, and the 
 chiefs of the Deiu;)cratic party in the days 
 ■when the Democratic party paid some little 
 regard to the principles of popular govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Sir, the Senator from Connecticut denounced 
 this act of the People as a "'spurious Con- 
 vention." In 1S36. the freemen of Michigan, 
 disregardin^i^ the action of their Li.'gislature, 
 came togeihcr in their primary capacit 
 
 Missouri — an 'invasion which took place on 
 the 1st of October last, when General Whit- 
 field was elected. I state here, on the au- 
 thority of gentlemen, some half dozen of 
 whom are within the sound of my voice, and 
 who will prove it under oath before your com- 
 mittee, if you will permit them to do so, that 
 hundreds of men went over from Missouri and 
 voted in that election. 
 
 The invasion — the fourth invasion of which 
 we have heard so much in these papers from 
 
 framed a Constitution, sent that Constitution j the Executive Department — grew out of the 
 
 *., n __j .i,.,4. n ,*:..,.: ., , < „,.tj i.i....j.-.j __ i__ _i- .„ u .. xk _ 
 
 to Congress, and tiiat Constitution was car- 
 ried through the Senate by the votes of Ben- 
 ton, Buchanan, Wright, and the chiefs of the 
 Democratic jjarty ; but that was in the days 
 of Andrew Jackson, when it was supposed 
 the people of this country had retained the 
 rights guarantied to them by the fundamen- 
 tal laws of the country. Sir, Andrew Jack- 
 son did not denounce the movement as an in- 
 
 cold-blooded murder of a man by the name 
 of Dow, at Hiclcory Point, by one Coleman. 
 Mr. Branson and his neighbors took the mor- 
 tal remains of the murdered Dow from the 
 highway, where he had lain for hours, and 
 consigned them to his last resting-place. 
 The murderer has never been tried or arrested. 
 Branson, with whom Dow had lived, waa 
 arrested on a peace-warrant, by Sheriff Jones, 
 
 surrectionary one, although they refused to ! and rescued by some fifteen of his neighbors 
 receive the officer whom he sent to them, land friends. Then it was that the stories 
 The Congress of that day did not denounce | were manufactured, thata thousand men were 
 those men as traitors to the country, as the' organized at Lawrence, armed with Sharpe'a 
 men of Kansas are denounced in the docu- I rifles and cannon, ready to resist the auihori- 
 ments before us, ten thousand extra copies of \ ties. There were not then more than three 
 which we are asked to publish. No, sir, no! : hundred Sharpe's rifles in Lawrence, and not 
 This is the first time in the history of this : one cannon. There was no armed soldiery 
 country, when the People have assembled in I in Lawrence when these charges were made; 
 their primary capacity, and exercised their j there were armed men there, but they were 
 right, their inborn, natural right, to change 1 not embodied. Of the men who aided in the 
 their Government at their pleasure, and then rescue of Branson — an act which might take 
 being held up as traitors by the Government place in any State, at any tinie, without any 
 of the country. Governor thinking of calling out the armed 
 
 Sir, the Democracy in both branches of militia, much less the forces of the United 
 Congress sustained the doctrines maintained States — only two ever lived in Lawrence, and 
 by the suffrage party in Rhode Island ; and | they were not in Lawrence at that time. The 
 it so happens that when Governor Dorr j reports mentioned in these dispatches, about 
 took refuge in the old Granite State, among ! burning buildings, have turned out to be ex- 
 the first who recognised the doctrines which I aggerated and misrepresented, 
 he maintained, was the man who is Chief On the strength of these reports, however, 
 Magistrate of the United States, and who now : Governor Shannon sent his letter of the 28th 
 denounces the freemen of Kansas, and holds i of November to the President, and on the 
 up to the country as violators of the law, men ' next day he issued that fatal proclamation 
 who are, on the 4th of March next, to be ar- j which fomented, at the time, the invasion from 
 rested if they dare asseiuble in their legisla- i Missouri, and this was followed by his tele- 
 tive capacity, and choose two United States I graphic despatch of the 1st of December. 
 Senators to come and implore us to receive j Here let me say, that in this letter, proclama- 
 Kansas into this sisterhood of States, and thus j tion, and dispatch. Governor Shannon shows 
 save this fair Territory from bloodshed and ' that he is not a man who comprehends his 
 ruin. Yes, sir, this man, who now charac- 1 position or his duties. He was^xcited and 
 terizes as " revolutionary" what has already j frightened by the reports and rumors he re- 
 been done by the people of Kansas, and warns , lied upon. During this period, when he 
 them that further action " will become trea- \ ordered out the militia and telegraphed the 
 Eonable insurrection," welcomed Governor i President, dispatches, founded on rumors. 
 Dorr to the capital of New Hampshire, on the were sent into Missouri; and the result was, 
 14th of December, 1842, in a series of resolu- ; that from one thousand to two thousand 
 tions declaring, that " when the people act in | armed men came from Missouri into Kansas ; 
 their original sovereign capacity, they are : and they were incorporated into that ''little 
 not bound to conform to forms not instituted ; force of less than four hundred men," spoken 
 by themselves;" that " the day of free Gov- ' of in these despatches from Kansas, which 
 ernment would never dawn upon the eyes of ' rallied to the call of the officers of the militia! 
 oppressed millions," "if the friends of Liberty i Sir, if the people of Kansas had been with the 
 should wait for leave from tyrants to abolish Governor— if they had sympathized with him 
 tyranny." I in his ill-starred inovements— if they had be- 
 
 Sir, in pursuing this history, I have fol- i lieved that law and order were in danger- 
 lowed the order of time, and I am now j would they not have rallied to his support? 
 brought to speak of another iavasiou from i On that occasion, the arsenal of the United 
 
12 
 
 States in Western Missouri was broken open ; 
 arms were stolen and carried into Kansas. 
 Nothing is said about this robbery in these 
 reports. Missourians broke open this arsenal, 
 and stole cannon, ammunition, and muskets, 
 for the purpose of goin<^ on a marauding in- 
 vasion ; and the late President of the Senate 
 was compelled — so great was the danger — to 
 hasten after them, to keep them from hurting 
 somebody ! Yet, not a word is said about it 
 in these dispatches! Sir, if the freemen of 
 Kansas had broken open that arsenal, and 
 had stolen even a gun-flint, you would have 
 had a proclamation from your Governor and 
 your President, and the array of the United 
 States would have been called out to put them 
 down. But it was the organized men of the 
 Blue Lodges in Western Missouri who did it. 
 They have been, and now are. permitted to 
 violate all law with impunity. Woodson, the 
 Secretary of Kansas, urged on these lawless 
 men from Missouri, by assuring them that 
 " there is no doubt in regard to having a figlit ; 
 and if we are defeated this time, the Territory j 
 is lost to the South." 
 
 The invading hosts from Missouri encamped j 
 on the Wakarusa, within about six miles of 
 beleaguered Lawrence. In marked contrast 
 to the inconsiderate folly of Shannon, was the 
 prudent, firm and heroic bearing of General 
 Robinson. Throughout the whole contest, 
 his prudence was signally manifested ; and, 
 in the opinion of many, the country was 
 saved from bloodshed and civil war by his 
 action. On the 7th of December, your Gov- 
 ernor tells you he went to Lawrence ; but he 
 does not tell you the whole story. He did go 
 to Lawrence, and he met the Lawrence men, 
 and the Lawrence women, too ; and he saw 
 the inflexible determination of the one, and 
 the calm devotion of the other. He told gen- 
 tlemen who directed the aifairs of Lawrence, 
 that they had been misrepresented — that they 
 misunderstood each other; and then, after 
 two days of conference and negotiation, he 
 made a treaty. The first sentence of the treaty 
 acknowledges that the Governor and the peo- 
 ple of Lawrence had not understood each 
 other. Here is a man who asked the Presi- 
 dent for the army of the United States ; who 
 ordered out the militia, and incorporates into 
 the militia of Kansas, by the showing of these 
 papers, from one thousand to fifteen hundred 
 Missourians ; and then, after doing this, he 
 went to Lawrence — and what did he find? 
 People who flew to arms simply to protect 
 their homes and their firesides against an 
 armed invasion of two thousand men, who 
 were threatening, with oaths, to burn their 
 city, and to blot them out from existence. I 
 say. Governor Shannon made a treaty with 
 General Lane, (known to some Senators here,) 
 and with General Robinson — a man who, I 
 hope, is hereafter to be known to Senators — 
 and this treaty closes with the agreement, on 
 the part of Governor Shannon, that he " will 
 use his influence to secure to the citizens of 
 Kansas remuneration for any damages sus- 
 tained by the sheriff's posse in Douglas coun- 
 
 ty; that he has not called upon persons resi- 
 dents of any other States to aid in the execu- 
 tion of the laws ; and that he has not any 
 authority or legal power to do so, nor will he 
 exercise any such power ; and that he will not 
 call on any citizen of another State who may 
 be here." In these negotiations he agreed to 
 waive the question of the validity of the laws 
 of the Territorial Legislature. Then he issued 
 an order to Lane and Robinson to incorpo- 
 rate into the service of Kansas the militia of 
 Lawrence, and directed them " to use the en- 
 rolled <brce for the preservation of the peace, 
 and the protection of Lawrence and vicinity " 
 acainst the armed men on the banks of the 
 Wakarusa. 
 
 Mr. President, this treaty, which Shannon 
 signed, with Lane and Robinson, on Sunday, 
 the 9th of December, 1855, will stand a per- 
 petual confession of his incapacity and folly ; 
 this order, giving Lane and Robinson author- 
 ity " to use the enrolled force" — with those 
 famed Sharpe's rifles — "for the preservation 
 of peace, and the protection of Lawrence and 
 vicinity " against the armed bands his fatal 
 proclamation had summoned, will sUmd a 
 living testimony that the men of Lawrence 
 were the guardians of law. Yes, sir, that 
 treaty and that order will stand an eternal 
 expression, at once of error and repentance. 
 
 After signing those evidences of his own 
 huiniliation, he returned to the camp on the 
 Wakarusa, and then, to the leaders of the 
 crew he had drawn together, proclaimed his 
 truce with the men of Lawrence. Back to 
 their homes in Missouri sauntered these baf- 
 fled bands of lawless deperadocs, cold, sullen, 
 dispirited. They came to the banks of the 
 Wakarusa, big with threats of vengeance 
 upon the Free-State men of Lawrence ; they 
 returned with bitter curses ujion the imbecile 
 Governor, whose proclatuation had drawn 
 them from their homes. General Stringfellow, 
 whose pure taste the Senator from South Car- 
 olina can vouch for, denounced the treachery 
 of Shannon. Captain Leonard, the leader of 
 one of these gangs of border banditti, through 
 the columns of the St. Joseph (?a2««c, declares 
 that your Governor "raises a storm, and then 
 to qtjell it, Judas-like, professes his special 
 friendship, first for one party, and then, I con- 
 jecture, for the other. But however this may 
 be, he descends to the despicable position of 
 a common liar, both to the one party and the 
 other." 
 
 You m.ay search the records of the country, 
 from the settlement at Jamestown to this day, 
 and you can find no instance of such incapa- 
 city, folly, and superadded criminality, as 
 AVilson Shannon displayed on that occasion ; 
 or such an utter disregard of the rights of the 
 people as was manifested by the border set- 
 tlers of Missouri. I commend to the consider- 
 ation of the Senator from Missouri these preg- 
 nant questions of the St. Louis Democrat, a 
 paper published at his own home: 
 
 " Wliat right had these hordes of border 
 ' banditti to invade the soil of that Territory, 
 ' and enlist themselves in support of Governor 
 
13 
 
 'Shannon? What business had they there? 
 'What law or what precedent would justify 
 'their interference in the affairs of a free and 
 'sovereign Territory? What right had Gov- 
 'ernor Shannon and Stringfellow to invite, 
 'encourage, or countenance their presence in 
 'arms, in a Commonwealth of which they 
 'were not citizens? AVas there ever a more 
 ' glaring inconsistency, or a more glaring out- 
 ' rage, than that by which Shannon and his 
 'minions have sought to overawe and crush 
 'a portion of the people of Kansas, by intro- 
 ' duciug a gang of lawless desperadoes upon 
 ' their soil, armed to the teeth with weapons 
 ' obtained by breaking open a United States 
 ' arsenal ? Has the civilized world ever known 
 ' a more disgraceful, barbarous, and savage 
 'spectacle?" 
 
 This Administration has now clothed Wil- 
 son Shannon — whose incompetency has been 
 made manifest to the world — with the civil 
 and military authority, and with all the pow- 
 er of the Government to execute the laws, 
 and to maintain order in the Territory. The 
 duties assigned this officer, in the present crit- 
 ical condition of affairs on your frontiers, are 
 of the gravest and most weighty character. 
 Sir, j-our Administration — by the wanton re- 
 peal of the Missouri prohibition, hy the fail- 
 ure to protect the actual residents of Kansas 
 in their rights, and by the blundering acts 
 and criminal remissness of the official author- 
 ities — has brought the nation to the perilous 
 edge of civil strife. Sir, this Administration 
 owes it to the country, whose peace is in dan- 
 ger this day, to intrust the responsible and 
 delicate duties of Governor of Kansas to a 
 prudent, judicious, sagacious statesman — a 
 man of individual honor and personal char- 
 acter, in whom the people can place the fullest 
 confidence. Wilson Shannon is not that man. 
 The man who could descend to degrading 
 companionship around the gaming tables of 
 those saloons of San Francisco, (described by 
 that experienced traveller, Jladame Ida Pfeif- 
 fer, as the most dissolute she had ever seen in 
 her tour of the globe,) with Mexican greasers, 
 the escaped convicts of the British penal col- 
 onies, aud the desperadoes of the Old World 
 and the New — the man who could, while Kan- 
 sas was overrun by armed bands, summoned 
 around Lawrence by his own reckless letters, 
 dispatches, and proclamations, while civil 
 war lowered over the people intrusted to his 
 care — while an honored citiisen, stricken down 
 by the assassin, lay cold in death, and a de- 
 voted wife was weeping over his mortal re- 
 mains, make himself the humiliating object 
 of the derision of his enemies, and of the pity 
 of his friends, by an exhibition of gross in- 
 toxication — is not the man to whom the 
 American people would intrust the affairs of 
 Kansas. 
 
 I call the attention of the Senate, Mr. Pres- 
 ident, to another foray over the borders — to 
 the fifth Missouri invasion. I mean the irrup- 
 tion into Kansas on the 15th of December, 
 when the people Avere called upon to vote 
 upon the Constitntion framed by that Con- 
 
 vention the Senator from Connectictit is 
 pleased to pronounce "spurious." Along the 
 Missouri border, the people in several ot the 
 voting precincts were overawed liy threats of 
 impending violence, and meetings were not 
 holden. At Leavenworth, the election was 
 broken up by the lawless brutality of men, 
 many of whom had been ordered to Leaven- 
 worth on that day, to be formally discharged 
 from service in the Kansas militia, into which 
 they had been incorporated. At the dinner 
 hour, while most of the people were absent 
 from the polls, these "border ruffians" rushed 
 upon the otHcers, broke up the meeting, beat 
 to the earth, Witherell, the clerk, whose life 
 was saved by the heroic daring of Brown, 
 since foully murdered, who rushed to his res- 
 cue at a moment when the uplifted a.xe of the 
 assassin was about to descend upon his pros- 
 trate form. 
 
 On the 22d of December, another foray was 
 made uj)on freedom at Leavenworth, and the 
 press of Mr. Delahay, which barely escaped 
 on the 15th, was destroyed. Mr. Delahay is 
 a native of Maryland, and has been a slave- 
 holder in his native State, in Alabama, and 
 in Missouri ; a man who has little sympa- 
 thy with Anti-Slavery men. He is simply 
 one of those moderate, conservative men, who 
 believe that " free labor is honorable, and 
 slave labor is dishonorable," and that the per- 
 manent interests of Kansas would be promoted 
 by making it a free Commonwealth. 
 
 On the loth of January, the people of Kan- 
 sas were called upon to elect officers under 
 the Constitution adopted on the 15th of De- 
 cember. Another assault upon the freedom 
 of the ballot-box was made at Easton, by 
 armed men. The people attempted to resist 
 the destruction of the ballot-boxes bj'' these 
 marauding squads that were prowling over 
 the country, insulting the people, and robbing 
 them of their means of defence. Peaceable, 
 law-abiding citizens were hunted down, fired 
 upon, and their lives put in imminent peril. 
 Some of them had to flee to Lawrence, as to 
 a city of refuge, to save themselves from the 
 vengeance of the prowling assassins. A party 
 of these lawless desperadoes captured Mr. 
 Brown — who so bravely rescued Witherell at 
 Leavenworth — and several others, robbed 
 them of their arms, and then, with hatchets 
 and knives, they fiendishly hacked and cut 
 Brown to pieces, flung him in a dying condi- 
 tion into a carriage, and bore him to his 
 home, to breathe out his life in the arms of 
 his distracted wife, another sacrifice to the 
 dark spirit of slave propagandism. 
 
 To-day, sir, unless they are on their march, 
 there is arming and organizing in Westp- 
 ern Missouri, in the Blue Lodges, in the se- 
 cret camps, hosts of men for another inva- 
 sion. Sleepless eyes are upon these move- 
 ments, organized by Atchison and his subal- 
 terns. General Lane and General Pvobinsou 
 sent to the President, on the 21st of January, 
 a telegraphic dispatch. Colonel Lane — a man 
 who trod the battle-field of Buena Vista — a 
 man who knows something of what war ifi, 
 
14 
 
 vrho knows something of the threats that 
 have been made, and the preparations that 
 are now malting, on the borders of Western 
 Jlissouri, for another lawless invasion of Kan- 
 sas — has appealed to the President for protec- 
 tion. He is no fimatic. Sir, }-ou, cannot call 
 him an abolitionist, at least not j-et. 
 
 Mr. HALE. He will be one soon. 
 
 Jlr. WILSON. The Senator from New 
 Hampshire says he will be one soon. The 
 scenes through which he is passing are calcu- 
 lated to abolilionize men made of the hardest 
 natures. John Quincy Adams once said that 
 a man " has the right to be an Abolitionist, 
 and being an Abolitionist he violates no law, 
 human or divine." General Lane may be an 
 Abolitionist; but, sir, he is not one now. On 
 the 21st of January he asked the President to 
 send the military force stationed at Fort Lea- 
 venworth to protect the people of Kansas 
 against an invasion which is " organizing on 
 our border, amply supplied with artillery, for 
 the avowed purpose of invading our Territo- 
 ry, demolishing our towns, and butchering 
 our unoffending Free State citizens." 
 
 Two days after, on January 23d, General 
 Lane and General Robinson asked the Presi- 
 dent to issue his proclamation forbidding this 
 lawless invasion of their Territory. The Sen- 
 ator from Connecticut flatters himself that 
 those of us who do not approve the course of 
 the administration will be greatly disappoint- 
 ed to find that the leaders of the Free State 
 movement in Kansas have implored the Exec- 
 utive to issue his proclamation. Let not the 
 Senator from Connecticut lay the flattering 
 unction to his soul, that we are chagrined by 
 the disclosure of this correspondence. Rob- 
 inson and Lane, in behalf of the imperilled 
 people of Kansas, asked the President to issue 
 "his proclamation immediately, forbidding 
 the invasion, which, if carried out as planned, 
 will stand forth without a parallel in the 
 ■world's history." They did not ask the Pres- 
 ident for his proclamation against the wronged 
 and oppressed people of Kansas. They asked 
 for bread — the President gave them a stone. 
 They asked for a fish — the President gave 
 them a serpent. 
 
 The President, sir, has issued his proclama- 
 tion, but that proclamation is chiefly and 
 mainly directed against Lane and Robinson, 
 and the liberty-loving, law-abiding Free State 
 men of Kansas. Like his annual message, in 
 which he softly spoke of the long series of 
 outrages you will scarcely find paralleled in 
 the history of Cliristian States, as "irregular- 
 ities " — like that special message in which the 
 aggressive acts of the Missouri invaders were 
 cohered over with mild and honeyed phrases, 
 and the defensive measures of the actual set- 
 tlers treated as insurrectionary acts, demand- 
 ing Executive censure, this proclamation will 
 be received on the Western borders by the 
 men who, by their votes and by their resolves, 
 have dictated law to Kansas, with shouts of 
 approval. Sir, this proclamation will carry 
 no terror into the Blue Lodges and secret 
 clubs of Western Missouri. 
 
 But, sir, we were congratulated yesterday 
 by the Senator from Connecticut, that the 
 laws were to be executed and order preserved. 
 I call the attention of the Senate and of the 
 country to the order of the Secretary of War. 
 What does this order say to Colonel Sumner? 
 Does it clearly and expressly command him 
 to arrest, at all hazards, any aggressive move- 
 ment upon Kansas, from Missouri? The Sec- 
 retary of War informs Colonel Sumner that 
 
 " The President has, by proclamation, 
 ' warned all persons combined for insurrectio7i, 
 ' or invasive aggression against the organized 
 ' Government of the Territory of Kansas, or 
 'associated to resist the due execution of the 
 ' laws therein, to abstain from such revolu- 
 ' tionary and lawless proceedings." 
 
 Does the Secretary, then, direct Colonel 
 Sumner to defend Kansas against " invasive 
 aggression 1" No, sir, no 1 The Secretary 
 then issues the orders of the Government to 
 Colonel Sumner in these terms: 
 
 " If, therefore, the Governor of the Territo- 
 'ry, finding the ordinary course of judicial 
 ' proceeding and the powers vested in the 
 ' United States marshals inadequate, for the 
 ' suppression of insurrectionary/ combinations, 
 ' or armed resistance to the execution of the law, 
 ' should make requisition upon you to furnish 
 ' a military force to aid him in the perforin- 
 ' ance of that official duty, you are hereby di- 
 ' rected to employ for that; purpose the forces 
 ' under your command." 
 
 Sir, this is not a direction to Colonel Sum- 
 ner to use his forces against the armed Mis- 
 souri invaders. The Secretary tells the Colo- 
 nel that the President has sent out his procla- 
 mation against those movements; but when 
 he comes to direct the commander of the force 
 of the United States what to do, he does not 
 order him to use that force, if there shall be 
 an invasion from the State of Missouri. The 
 Secretary shrinks from putting himself against 
 the lawless men who represent a Power in 
 this country that sustains them in their ag- 
 gressive acts. Sir, the Secretary bends to that 
 Power; he bows to these men who have no 
 " qualms of conscience as to violating laws, 
 State or National ;" and we have had nothing 
 but bows to these men for the last eighteen 
 months, from the other end of the avenue. 
 
 The reason why the Government has not 
 used its proper legitimate influences in Kan- 
 sas, for peace, for order, and for liberty, is the 
 same reason which originally snatched that 
 four hundred and fifty thousand square miles 
 of free soil — consecrated forever to the labor- 
 ing millions of this country — and flung vt 
 open to the slave-extending interests. 
 
 Sir, I know that men in the confidence of 
 the Administration have expressed the idea 
 that the Administration intends, if the Peo- 
 ple's Legislature meets on the 4th of March, 
 to arrest the members the moment they take 
 the oaths of ofiSce. It is a well-known fact, 
 sir — known by those who know anything 
 about affairs in Kansas — that they do not in- 
 tend to pass laws, or interfere in any waj 
 with the legislation or the country ; that they 
 
15 
 
 intend merely to assemble, state their griev- 
 ances to the country, and choose Senators to 
 come here, to implore us, in God's name, to 
 carry out the wishes of the people, and allow 
 Kansas to take her place in this Union of free 
 Commonwealths. I understand these to be 
 the intentions of the tried and trusted leaders 
 of the Free State men in Kansas. You may 
 arrest Governor Robinson and the leaders of 
 the Free State party ; you may imprison them 
 if you will ; you may shed the blood of the 
 actual settlers of Kansas ; but you cannot 
 break their spirits, or crush out their hopes. 
 The people of Kansas are for a free State; 
 and if it is made a slave State it will be by 
 the criminal remissness or direct interposition 
 of this Administration. Leave the people 
 of Kansas free, uninfluenced by your slave 
 State officials you have thrust upon them, un- 
 influenced by foreign interposition, and they 
 will bring her here clothed in the white robes 
 of Freedom. 
 
 The Senator from ilissouri said to us the 
 other day, that the colonists from the East 
 wished to keep others out; that they wished to 
 get possession of the Territory. Armed men, 
 he said, had crossed from Missouri to protect 
 the ballot-boxes against the armed colonists 
 sent there bj' the Emigrant Aid Society ! Did 
 they protect the ballot-boxes on the 29th of 
 November, 1854, when they went over and 
 gave fifteen hundred votes? Did they pro- 
 tect the ballot-boxes when they marched into 
 Kansas on the 30th of March, with cannon, 
 with revolver, and with rifle, displaced the 
 election of officers, and delivered their hun- 
 dreds of votes, and in a place where there 
 were but fifty-three voters, casting over six 
 hundred ? Did they protect the ballot-boxes 
 when they went there on the 15th of Decem- 
 ber, and broke up the meeting at Leaven- 
 worth ? Did they protect the ballot-boxes on 
 the 15th of January, when Brown was mur- 
 dered in revenge for standing by the ballot- 
 boxes, and protecting it against them ? 
 
 Sir, men aided to go there by the Emigrant 
 Aid Society have never — no, sir, never — at 
 any time, or on any occasion, interfered with 
 the freedom of voting. 
 
 " Whatever record leaps to light, 
 They never can be shamed." 
 
 Sir. I see that in the South there are move- 
 ments from all quarters to get up Emigrant 
 Aid Societies. The Senator from Mississippi, 
 [Mr. Beown,] always frank and manly on 
 these questions, proposes that Mississippi shall 
 send three hundred of her young men and 
 three hundred of her bondmen into that Ter- 
 ritory, to plan and shape its future. 1 say to 
 the honorable Senator from Mississippi, send 
 your Mississippi young men and your Missis- 
 sippi bondmen ; you will never find on the 
 part of the men who went there from the 
 North, under the auspices of Emigrant Aid 
 Societies, one single unlawful act to keep you 
 out or rob you of one of your lawful rights. 
 The men who charge the emigrants from the 
 North with aggressions upon the men of 
 
 other sections of the country, utter that which 
 has not the shadow of an element of truth in 
 it; and they know it, or they are grossly ig- 
 norant of Kansas afl'airs. This proposition of 
 the Senator from Mississippi was followed by 
 a letter from a Representative from South 
 Carolina, [Mr. Brooks,] offering to give $1 00 — 
 one dollar for every man they will send from 
 his section. I say to the Senators from South 
 Carolina, that if the offer of their colleague in 
 the other House is accepted, and if the hun- 
 dred men go from South Carolina to Kansas, 
 they will never be interfered with in the exer- 
 cise of their legal rights, by the men who 
 have gone there from New England or from 
 the North. 
 
 Atchison, the organizer and chief of those 
 border movements, thus appeals to the citizens 
 of Georgia to come to the rescue, for " KAN- 
 SAS MUST HAVE SLAVE LNSTITUTIONS, 
 OR MISSOURI MUST HAVE FREE INSTI- 
 TUTIONS." 
 
 He continues : 
 
 "Let your j"oung men come forth to Mis- 
 ' souri and Kansas. Let them come well 
 ' armed, and with money enough to support 
 ' them for twelve months and determined to 
 ' see this thing out. 1 do not see how we are 
 ' to avoid civil war. Come it will. Twelve 
 ' months will not elapse before war, civil war, 
 'of the fiercest kind, will be upon us. We 
 ' are arming and preparing for it ; indeed, we 
 ' of the border counties are prepared. We 
 ' must have the support of the South. We 
 ' are fighting the battles of the South. Our 
 ' institutions are at stake. We want men — 
 ' armed men. We want money. Let your 
 ' young men come on in squads, as fast a3 
 ' they can be raised, icell qrmed:' 
 
 Atchison's Lieutenant, Stringfellow, calls 
 upon the South to come to the aid of Missou- 
 rians who have dictated law to Kansas, and 
 " can do it again." The Moliile A'ews assures 
 the South that Atchison, Stringfellow, and 
 their lawless followers, "have been the only 
 means, under God, of teaching such miscreants 
 as the editor of the Missouri Democrat and his 
 Lawrence friends, that the way to the aboli- 
 tionizing of Missouri and Kansas is a road of 
 reddest blood for them ' to travel.' " 
 
 Sir, to appease the unhallowed desires of 
 the Slave Propaganda, you complied with 
 Atchison's demands, and repealed the Missou- 
 ri Prohibition. You then told the laboring 
 men of the Republic, whose heritage you thus 
 put in peril, that they could shape, mould, 
 and fashion, the institutions of those future 
 Commonwealths. Animated by motives as 
 pure and aims as lofty as ever actuated the 
 founders of any portion of the Globe, the sons 
 of the North wended their way to this region 
 beyond the Mississippi. These emigrants did 
 not all go there under the auspices of Emi- 
 grant Aid Societies, for it is estimated that 
 not more than one-fourth of the settlers of 
 Kansas are from New England and New York 
 that nearly one-half of the dwellerB in that 
 
16 
 
 Territory are from Pennsylvania and the 
 Northwest. 
 
 Only about one-fourth of the actual resi- 
 dents of Kansas are from the slaveholding 
 States, and many of these settlers from the 
 South, perhaps a majority of them, are in fe- 
 vor of making Kansas a free State. That 
 many of these emigrants from the South are 
 in favor of rearing free institutions, will sur- 
 prise no one who understands their condition. 
 j\Iost of these emigrants are poor men, and 
 have felt in their native homes the malign in- 
 fluences which bear with oppressive force 
 upon free labor. Thirty-five per cent, of the 
 emigration of the slave States has sought 
 homes in the free States, while less than ten 
 per cent, of the emigration from the free States 
 and from the old world find homes in the 
 slave States, although those States embrace 
 the largest as well as the fairest regions of the 
 country east of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Coming irom fields blasted by the sweat of 
 artless, untutored, unpaid labor — from regions 
 once teeming with the products of a prolific 
 soil, now "exhibiting," to quote the language 
 applied " with sorrow " to his native country, 
 by the Senator from Alabama, [Mr. Clay,] 
 " the painful signs of senility and decay, ap- 
 parent in Virginia and the Carolinas " — wit- 
 nessing the prosperity of free, educated labor, 
 many of these sons of the South meet the 
 men of the North, and stand with them, 
 
 shoulder to shoulder, in upholding the insti- 
 tutions of Freedom. 
 
 Within the Territory, the men of the North 
 and the men of the South meet together in 
 council. Northern and Southern men stood 
 side by side in those assemblages of the peo- 
 ple that put the brand of condemnation upon 
 the acts of the Legislature imposed upon 
 them. Northern and Southern men sat in 
 council in that Constitutional Convention the 
 Senator from Connecticut now pronounces 
 "spurious," and Northern and Southern men 
 stood side by side in the trenches of be- 
 leaguered Lawrence. "■ 
 
 Leave these men now in Kansas, free from 
 Missouri forays and Administration corrup- 
 tion, and in spite of the inhuman, unchristian, 
 and devilish acts to be found in the past 
 legislation of the Territory, they will bring 
 Kansas here as they have done already, robed 
 in the garments of Freedom. Men of the 
 South, you who would blast the virgin soil 
 of Kansas with the blighting, withering, con- 
 suming curse of Slavery — you, who would 
 banish the educated, self-dependent, free labor- 
 ing men of the North, to make room for the 
 untutored thriftless, dependent bondmen of 
 the South — vote down the Free State men of 
 Kansas, if you can ; but do not send " border 
 ruffians " to rob or burn their humble dwell- 
 ings, and murder brave men for the crime of 
 fidelity to their cherished convictions. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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