F685 .R82 ^m hf'' y sv. itfc, ^J k ''^. ^r^ ..,v„u.^. ,%' 4' -5"''!' l! l(.:?li>^XivttW jjJ^ 1 .^« •rr i 1 J 1- 1 ^3 - <->■ ■:#:fpl?/;i '«-^%' ^1 fc)!* -^■,/ ^°\':. > «.-4°* ' » 1 f ' ' >-• %a' \. ^ . . . / A ... ^ - ^^^^ ^i o. ^■^-y \--^.---y %-^vf>'/ \ % / I'' ^-^ x^^ ;^ "^cp <:> • > ■'o / i° -^^^ ,o'^ £. 0^ „ ' • 0, \ V r •Tl 1 ^^ 0^ 'u^c vV-^ cP\y^ ^.. ..^^^z ... V V^^>'' ^"'-^'V v-^^v*^ aV -^ ♦ aV '^ . i ^^^ ^v **. / ■•■■'•-.•' ^^^ ,,^ •'>«-<-• ^<-. .^ ■• C, vP „ C, vP . V-^ ^V' "^M \ . . - , V. ,V ^^ . . , 'V .^° ... '^^-. k ■< ' . . •■ -f> o< v^' O C V^'.s' V '* ■ % '^cv _,0' The Pilgrim and The Cavalier Im ansas By EDMUND G. ROSS (PIONEER SOLDIER SENATOR* < ,A The Pilgrim and tine Cavalier 'a>. m f^aosas HERE has been no lack of heroic incident in the history of America. Since the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, there has been a continuing illustration in varying forms, of the ^0 ^^^^!^ same daring spirit of endeavor and of conquest, t; that led the Pilgrims to embark in their frail craft upon an unknown sea in search of homes in an equally unknown land. The bold spirit of adventure and of con- quest then illustrated has since blazed its way to achieve- ments in war, in polities, in religion, in literature, in the sciences, and in all the social activities and economies, till the world has been metamorphosed. It is not the world it was three hundred, two hundred, or even one hundred years ago ; nor is man the same being he was. From the debased and cringing servitor he was three centuries ago, he has taken on a thinking, active, self-assertive personality, till the fame of the masterful spirit of the Pilgrim, as developed in the New World, has reflected back upon the old his own spirit of achievement and domination in human affairs, with a light and force that has everywhere kindled aspira- tions for a better and higher life. The broad expanse of the continent was to him a revela- tion. It opened up to him new and wonderful possibilities and whetted the spirit of conquest. His early triumphs over his immediate surroundings seemed but to add to his determination to conquer all before him, and the odds were never counted in the attack. Only the result of successful achievement was kept in view. No privation was too great ; no task too arduous; no danger too threatening to turn him aside from a once settled purpose. In every age of our history the conquering spirit of the Pilgrim has cropped out as a distinctive, inordinate, all-conquering characteris- tic. A bom fighter and instinctively a State builder, he came primarily to destroy and rebuild upon a greater and grander scale — though it may be said that he scarcely knew why. It was instinct. Opportunities and conditions developed mental and physical aspirations which forced aggressive activity. Early in their day the Pilgrims developed a race of con- querors, publicists and statesmen. As the aborigines were forced back, decimated and destroyed, the forum, the school house, the church and the State — all the characteristics and adjuncts of civilization — were established. It is this stock that subdued the West as its progenitors had the East. In its march to the Mississippi River, it fought its way through and over savage Indian tribes and the not less wild and dangerous four footed denizens of the forest. Beyond that its march was unimpeded — till, seemingly for the absence of opposition, the movement for a time appeared to halt. But it was only for a time. An occasion for the resumption of its westward march was not long delayed. The com- pact that had restricted the dominion of slavery at the door of the great plains, had been annulled. The Cavalier, who had settled and ruled the South had looked upon the smiling plains, the rippling streams and wooded dells of the southwest, and essayed to plant there new outposts for the strengthening of his favorite institution of slavery, as a buttress to his waning domination in American politics. Some thirty years before, he had consented to a compromise line which should forever mark the western limit of Ameri- can slavery. But the necessity of growth and development had made the abrogation of that compact imperative to the safety of his property in men. And so that line had been wiped off the map at his command. The long rest from conflict had apparently invigorated the Pilgrim with renewed and wonderful vitality, and the two opposing elements of American civilization met on the plains of Kansas. There was internecine war. There was turmoil and bloodshed. For the first time in history, Ameri- cans met in hostile attitude on the streets, on the high- ways and on armed fields in serried ranks — as enemies. It was the beginning of a struggle which was to settle the most gigantic question of public policy that had ever con- fronted any people — whether freedom or slavery should dominate and characterize the civilization of the new world. It was early demonstrated that the struggle was to be fought out to the finish — that the day of compromise was ended, that in the nature of things there could be no farther peace-patching — that the country must be all free or all slave, and that that end was to be reached only through the arbitrament of the sword, the last recourse for the settlement of public disputes. The Pilgrim triumphed, as usual. The conflict was replete with grandest illustrations of race and personal heroism. ' -etc /Sv^v The slow coursing iron blood of the Pilgrims was an over-match for the impetuous, hot blood of the Cavalier, and slavery went down forever, as the verdict of the giant struggle, written in letters of living light that spanned the continent — that a slave should no more forever tread the soil of America. That was the outcome and the verdict of the Kansas struggle, signed and sealed at Appomattox a few years later. It was upon her soil that the great con- flict commenced. It was there that occurred the first martyrdom to the cause of universal freedom. It was there that the first blow was strudk that sounded the death knell of American slavery, and in its death the consecration of the American continent to human freedom. From 1854 to 1865 Kansas was a vast camping ground, over which her people were constantly on guard. It was at once the outpost of civilization in the Southwest and Freedom's bulwark against the farther westward extension of human slavery. No day was too hot or too cold — no night too dark or too long, and no sacrifice too great, for the constant vigil of her people against the encroachment of the slave power on the East and the savage Indian on the West. For eleven years they were literally on the watch-tower of liberty. There were not more than one hundred thousand people in the State at the opening of the war, yet the record of her enlistments from the opening to the close, numbered not less than fifteen thousand, ranging from the smooth-faced youth of sixteen to the grizzled veteran of sixty, and the geographical scope of their ser- vice covered every southwestern state and territory. The State motto — "To the Stars through tribulation" — fittingly expresses the amibition and the record of the early settlers of Kansas. It was a record of devotion to a lofty idea and typical of American aspiration and cour- age. That idea was liberty bottomed on law — the courage was that of the Pilgrim when he set sail in his shallop to thread the trackless ocean in search of a home for free- men. Those early settlers of Kansas had set out in their emigrant wagons with their families, and on horseback and on foot, to build new homes in the then far West, and to erect a new Commonwealth dedicated to Freedom — primarily to build a living wall beyond which American slavery should never pass. Like their prototypes, they were State builders. With them, also, it was instinct. It was in their Pilgrim blood. The swaddling clothes of territoryism ill-fitted them, and scarcely were they well out of their emigrant wagons and their traveling and camp • ing outfits, till a movement was put afoot for a convention and a State government. Holding conventions and formu- lating resolutions is an American habit, and a useful one. It directs the mind and habits of thought into practical channels. It affords a safe and pleasant, if not always beneficial outlet for thought and for effort that might other- wise be directed to less innocent purposes. It is a public safety-valve — especially in times of public turmoil, when there is need of making haste slowly. Meantime, those who had been instrumental in abrogat- ing the eastern boundry of Kansas as the western limit of slavery, had also been active, and the western counties of Missouri had early poured over the border a force that for a time quite equalled that from the northeast. They also held conventions, adopted resolutions, and were active in formulating a system of State government for the new candidate for local sovereignty. Newspapers were estab- lished in the interest of the rival contestants for possession of the disputed country. Public meetings were held by each of the factions, and for a time there was turmoil in that land. Blood was shed and rapine run riot. On the part of the emigrants from the North, these conditions were aggravated by the coming on of winter. From a thousand to two thousand miles from their base of sup- plies, with insufficient housing for women and children, they were faced by elemental conditions to meet which they were but imperfectly equipped; while their adversaries had easy access across the border to their homes and all the comforts of living to which they were accustomed ; and could come and go at will. The first winter of this period was one of serious discomfort to all, and of great suffering to many of these emigrants; and iheir second winter was little better. Many a family which had been accustomed to the comforts of Eastern homes, of society, of schools and of churches, passed those winters in rude log cabins and stone huts, in shacks, in slab shanties, and even in im- provised caves, and lived on food which in better days they would scarcely have thrown to their dogs. But there was little complaining. They had been cast in a heroic mould, and were there for a heroic purpose. They were equal to the occasion, and each returning spring found them ready and alert for the fray, in whatever form it might come. To add to the gravity of these untoward conditions, though the second year found the Free State people in an unquestionable and increasing majority, the Federal Gov- ernment affected to treat them as outlaws. The authorities at Washington were in league with the minority in Kansas which was becoming less and less month by month, and the Army of the United States, carrying the flag of equal rights to all, was put to the ignoble use of arresting and imprisoning American citizens, guilty of no offence but the exercise of the unquestioned rights of American citizen- ship — the right of free speech and the right of self-defence. During the years of 1854 to '56, the flag of the Ameri- can Republic was draggled in the mire of faction and the American escutcheon was smirched with a partisan crime. It became, so far as the Federal officials of that time could make it, a symbol of oppression, of wrong and of fraud, and under its protecting folds were perpetrated crimes upon liberty, crimes upon humanity, for which nothing short of total extirpation, root and branch, of the hideous monster, American Slavery, in whose behalf and at whose instance those crimes were committed, could atone. The third year of the territory, 1856, practically set- tled its status on the side of freedom. But one incursion of armed non-residents occurred, and though in very con- siderable numbers, they were met in force before they could penetrate into the country, and turned back. From that time on, the policy of the General Government began to change. The Free State settlers had so accumulated in numbers and equipment that it had become manifest that farther effort to force slavery upon Kansas would be futile. Wiser counsels had begun to prevail at Washington. The fact had come to be recognized in controlling official circles that Kansas must become a free state, that the west- ward march of slavery had been stayed, and that the ill- advised abrogation of the Missouri Compromise line was a mistake of that character that partaQtes largely of the nature of a public crime. With the return of continued peace, public attention again became engrossed in legitimate state making. The Federal Administration still seemed intent on making Kansas a slave state, or at the worst an innocuous free state. The Federal officials of the territory quite uniformly discharged their functions with the appearance of having received instructions to that end. So the controversy was transferred from the field to the forum. It had become a game of politics, with Washington City as the center of direction, and the trials of the Free State men were not yet ended, though the worst was over, and they had obtained a vantage ground that relieved them of much of the turmoil and anxiety of the first three years of their set- tlement. The struggle had become one of finesse — of brains instead of rifles, and of physical endurance. Three several conventions had been held for the purpose of formulating constitutions for the new State, at Topeka, in 1856, and at Lecompton and Leavenworth in 1857. The first and third were composed of Free State men and their proposed constitutions were shaped accordingly. The Lecompton Convention was composed of pro-slavery men, and their action was in the interest of slavery, though there was in it a seductive clause purporting to submit the question of slavery to a popular vote. But it was mis-leading — as, if adopted, slavery, already established, would have continued to exist. So that instrument, also, came to naught, though, as an inducement to its acceptance, it proposed grants of vast areas of the public domain to the new state for various public purposes and for the endowment of public institu- tions. It was an alluring bait, but the Free State people, now in a large majority, did not even seriously consider the proposition. Under the operation of that proposed con- stitution, Kansas would have been, so far as that instru- ment could effect it, simply an "innocuous" free state. In the election of 1858 for members of the Territorial Legislature the Free State people easily obtained control, and another constitutional convention was ordered. That convention assembled at Wyandotte in the summer of 1859. The constitution framed by it was adopted in the succeeding fall election by an almost unanimous vote, but was not accepted by Congress until January 21st, 1861. That ended all forms of slavery agitation in Kansas. Indeed, it had for some years previously ceased to be a question even of dis- cussion among the people in the Territory. For two years previous to admission, the pro-slavery party in Congress had stood solidly against the admission of Kansas as a free state, and her admission was finally brought about only by the previous retirement of the Senatorial delegations from the states of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, the admission bill having previously passed the House. It was, of course, foreseen by the Senators and Con- gressmen from the South that the eventual admission of Kansas was a certainty, and that her admission would permanently install a free state or anti-slavery majority in both houses of Congress — that there was no practical utility in further resistance, and that it was wise to bring matters to a crisis at once, the more effectually to hamper the Government in any measures that might be resorted to for the prevention of that general disintegration which they vainly hoped would follow their retirement. It had, of course, been understood by all, but by none more clearly than the slaveholders themselves, that the possession of Kansas was vital to the existence of slavery. That institution was "eating itself out" in the then slave states. It must have room for expansion, or die of suffoca- tion or insurrection. The slaves were rapidly increasing in numbers, and in large sections of the South they already outnumbered the whites. The situation was becoming perilous to their owners. The breaking down of the old compromise barrier to the western progress of slavery was logical, and of the most urgent necessity to afford room for expansion and thus avoid congestion and not impossible insurrection and anarchy. From the slaveholder's point of view there was political and economic necessity for the possession of not only Kansas, but the entire Southwest — the Indian Territory, New Mexico and Ajizona. The critical need of the time, to the South, was room for that increase, and it was imperative. But the loss of Kansas settled the question, and there was no recourse for the South but secession, if they would preserve slavery — ap- parently in the expectation that their withdrawal would disrupt and remove all obstructions to the extension of slavery in any desired or practical direction. That was the logic of the situation, and the slave owner was quick to see it — furthermore, that in the nature of things the Union must be all free or all slave. So, to test the proposi- tion, in the possibility of making it all slave, or as nearly so as would be sufficient for their purpose, they withdrew, or attempted to withdraw. That they would be compelled to remain, was not, in their calculation, even a remote possi- bility. But in the slaveholder's mad assumption of superiority of right and his lofty contempt for all who as- sumed to champion the common rights of humanity, even in the slave, he sowed the wind, and therefore reapt the whirlwind, and Kansas was the land where the tornado gathered and from which it started for the performance of its divine mission. So it fell out that Kansas became the entering wedge that was to split the Union or destroy slavery — and it would be uncandid to deny that for a time it was a question which it should be, for there were dark days during the war, under the cloud of possible foreign intervention, which moved to misgiving the hearts of the strongest. The struggle in Kansas was, therefore, in the highest possible sense a question of politics. On its solution hung the gravest and grandest problem that ever confronted the philosopher, the humanitarian or the statesman — whether the great Republic should thenceforth be the home and citadel of freedom or the Icennel of the slave. It was on the plains of Kansas that this most masterful of all the issues that ever arose to vex the politics of the world was fought to a finish, and freedom triumphed. It seems not too much to claim for the earlier settlers of Kansas that they were at least a potent factor in the destruction of slavery in the United States, and thus the salvation of the Union. From first to last of the great struggle that was to determine that momentous issue, covering a period of eleven years, from 1854 to 1856, their days and nights, their lives and fortunes, were freely laid upon the altar of their country in this grandest of all the grand occasions that history records for the advancement of man, and the betterment of human conditions. Kansas was the Thermopylae of the struggle, and her citizens stood at Thermopylae throughout the long night of that struggle. They passed through many dark hours while the strife was on. At times hungry and naked — at all times the enemy at their door, the sword of Federal authority held threateningly over their heads, and their chief men and counsellors imprisoned and held as criminals under guard of Federal troops for no crime — the record of courage and constancy then and thus made, was never surpassed in human history, and the end of it all was a fitting finale — a nation all free. At the end of the century of which the history of Kansas will stand out in illumination, the United States will exhibit a grand front of a hundred million free- men — not a slave — and all in a considerable sense the work of Kansas. The discomforts of her earlier pioneers, brought thither by the pressure of the greatest issue of the age — their sufferings from cold and hunger, equalled only by the record of Valley Forge — from daily and nightly patrol against armed bands from across a hostile border, from open murder and secret assassination, and from the con- stant disturbance and not infrequent total suspension of economic pursuits, and continuing for years, all combine to present an unbroken record of heroic endurance, self- sacrifice and constancy to a grand idea, that no previous era of the world history has surpassed, and rarely equalled. The blood of the Pilgrim blossomed out in Kansas, and the fruition was the death of slavery in America. EDMUND G. ROSS, Ex-United States Senator from Kansas. Albuquerque, New Mexico 1895. Haywnrth Pub. House, Waali 1> C S86 \ \. .-iP^ ''*"' ^^ ^^. .<^^ o-c '^. ^^ ..'., -^^ A^ o.. <<». ^^ .C. -^^ -^^ A o " " • • <** *-.. ^ ,,.* /-^^-, -..^/ ,^, .,^^,* , ^0 1^ .'-o, -^^ .^ O. * o « ' ,C v^ A <-. X^ Ov .e 'b- V^ °^ 1^ . • • ^ V ^'^ ^^ ■••- A <. *'^^vr* G^ \ "-.- A /'"■^o'-^' ^ o '^ rO- n\^ "o V" ^°V •^-0^ A-^ "- ..V •A c / ^-f> ,0' .HO. 'A. '^-^^<^ ^^ -0' '» ^ % -<-. A ^0^ 4 o. xOr>. H O, A^-V , */* .0' ■■■>> ^«i^ -^ V x^-*:^ v "^^ -^' .^' • ^^<^ .0"-- .v>' "-^^ ^"y^f^^'. ft .■t/%^- • Jl*^ 6 " " " '^^ .0>^ JAN 75 N MANCHESTER. INDIANA ^ 4^' V ■ ■ vi;p!ii||piiilM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 7§.;