Glass. 
 Book. 
 
 
EL^r 
 
 Reprinted from the Cosmopolitan Magazine of May, 1S94. 
 
[-0,^^ 
 
 k^r 
 
Compliments of 
 
 THOMAS EWING, 
 
 41 Wall Street, 
 
 New York City. 
 
 FROM THE 
 COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 
 

 
 By Thomas Ewing. 
 
 IX Februar}-, 1854, I sat in the gallery- 
 of the Senate chamber at Washing- 
 ton, and heard ninch of the debate on the 
 bill to repeal the Missouri compromise of 
 1820. I was then about completing my 
 collegiate course in Brown university, at 
 Providence, Rhode Island. Four 3-ears 
 before, I had sat in the gallery of the old 
 Senate chamber, now the Supreme Court 
 room, in company with Captain William 
 Tecumseh Sherman (then in Washington 
 from the Pacific coast, and about to be 
 married), and heard that ever memorable ■ 
 debate which ended in the compromises of 
 1850, growing out of our vast accessions 
 of territory from Mexico, and in the enact- 
 ment of the cruel and barbarous fugitive 
 slave law. I was intensely anti-slavery, — 
 far more so than my Whig training would 
 account for. I was hot with indignation 
 at the Whig leaders who supported the 
 repeal of the Missouri compromise, or 
 acquiesced in it, or resisted it but feebl}'. 
 I recollect ni}' pang of disappointment at 
 the labored speech against the bill of 
 Edward Everett, who was regarded as 
 representing the conservative Whigs. It 
 was so cool, didactic, elegant, without a 
 glow of the indignant spirit of the North 
 which blazed in the hearts of the people. 
 The gauge thrown down by the South 
 to fight for the possession of the territo- 
 ries was pronipth- taken up ; and Kansas 
 became the battle-ground. While study- 
 ing law at Cincinnati, I watched every 
 step in the struggle, — saw how the genius 
 
 and energy of Eli Thayer taught the 
 North to win Kansas for freedom by or- 
 ganized emigration, against the sporadic 
 hordes from the populous borders of IMis- 
 souri who poured over the line to plant 
 slaver}^ there. When admitted to the bar 
 in the winter of 1S56-7, I was married, and 
 removed with my wife to Leavenworth. 
 
 On the seventh of October, 1854, Andrew 
 H. Reeder had arrived atFort Leavenworth 
 — the first of the ten governors, and act- 
 ing governors, Reeder, Shannon, Geary, 
 Walker, Denver, Medar}-, Woodson, Stan- 
 ton, Walsh andBeebe, whose brief careers 
 form part of the tragic histor}' of Kansas. 
 
 The pro-slaver}' partisans of western 
 Missouri, as soon as the Organic Act was 
 passed, invaded Kansas at the first election 
 in the fall of 1854, and again at the sec- 
 ond election in the spring of 1855 ; and 
 although few of them intended to become 
 settlers, they took possession of the polls 
 and returned the pro-slavery candidates 
 for the territorial legislature as having 
 been elected. The first legislature assem- 
 bled at Pawnee, near Fort Rile}', July 2, 
 1855 — very promptly ejected nine Free 
 State men, who had been inadvertently 
 returned as elected ; enacted all the gen- 
 eral laws of Missouri, modified so as to be 
 applicable to Kansas ; and crowned their 
 work b}- enacting a complete slave code, 
 specially invented for the occasion — re- 
 quiring ever}' territorial ofiicer to swear 
 to support the fugitive slave law ; mak- 
 ing it a felony, punishable with two 
 
years' imprisonment, to write or saj' that slavery did 
 not legalh' exist in Kansas; a felon\-, punishable with 
 five 3-ears' imprisonment, to bring into the Territor}- 
 or circulate an}' printed matter calculated to create dis- 
 satisfaction among slaves ; and finalh", making it a 
 felon}^, punishable with death, to interfere knowingl}', 
 in an}^ manner, with the tenure of slave propert}'. 
 
 The Free State men, outraged by the forcible seiz- 
 ure of the territorial government by mere invaders, 
 and by the atrocious character of the laws enacted, 
 peremptorih^ and unanimousl3' repudiated this govern- 
 ment as a lawless usurpation. They held a delegate 
 convention at Topeka, vSe])teniber 19, 1S55, and there 
 provided for the elec- 
 tion of members of a 
 convention to form 
 a State constitution 
 and applj- for admis- 
 sion into the Unior 
 The delegates - 
 elected assembled . 
 Topeka, October 2;^, 
 1855, ^^d sat until 
 November iith. 
 They formed the 
 Topeka constitution 
 which was rati fied by 
 an almost unan: 
 mous vote of tli 
 Free State men ul 
 Kansas, and was b\ 
 petition duh' laid be- 
 
 THOMAS EWING, JR. 
 AGE 22. 
 
 Engraved by DeC Orme. 
 
 THOMAS EWING, JR. 
 AGE 26. 
 
 Engraved by G. Kriiell. 
 
 THOMAS EWING, JR., AGE 55. 
 
 fore Congress. A bill 
 was passed b}- the 
 United States House 
 o f Representatives 
 July 3, 1856, admit- 
 ting Kansas into the 
 Union under this 
 constitution, but it 
 was defeated in the 
 Senate, and no fur- 
 ther action was tak- 
 en on it in Congress. 
 This constitution, 
 however, and the 
 State officers and 
 legislature elected 
 under it, formed the 
 nucleus and rallying 
 ground for the Free 
 State part}', as 
 against the usurped Lecompton territorial 
 government, until the election in October, 
 1857, when the overwhelming numbers of 
 the Free State men enabled them to elect 
 a large majority of the legislature under 
 the Lecompton territorial government, 
 which thereupon became universalh* rec- 
 ognized as the law-making power of the 
 people. The Topeka form of State gov- 
 ernment then quieth' passed out of even 
 nominal existence. 
 
 Prior to this, on the nineteenth of Feb- 
 ruar}-, 1S56, the pro-slaver3' territorial leg- 
 islaturehadenacteda lawproviding for the 
 election of a State convention, which as- 
 sembled on the seventh day of September, 
 1857, and formed what was known as the 
 Lecompton State coustitiition. This was 
 submitted to the people for adoption or 
 rejection at an election held December 21, 
 1857. There was a large majority of qual- 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 ified voters ready and anxious to vote it 
 down. That would have ended slaver}- in 
 Kansas forever. But the convention had 
 arranged an ingenious and rascalh' scheme 
 for submission of the constitution in 
 such manner that a majority could not 
 vote it down. Part of the tickets were 
 printed, "For the Constitution, with 
 Slavery," the other part, " For the Con- 
 stitution, without Slavery." No other 
 votes could be given or counted. All the 
 votes cast were for the adoption of the 
 constitution ; and even if the constitution 
 should be adopted without slavery, the 
 slaves then in the Territory-, and their 
 children, were to remain slaves for life. 
 
 As the time approached for this elec- 
 tion a Free State delegate convention was 
 called and held at Lawrence, December 2, 
 1857, " to take into consideration the pres- 
 ent political situation of the Territory." 
 It resolved unanimousl}' that everything 
 connected with the Lecompton constitu- 
 tion was a swindle, and that the people 
 could gain nothing b}' participating in 
 the election on the adoption of the con- 
 stitution. So that election went by de- 
 fault in favor of the pro-slavery party. 
 The votes stood, for the constitution, with 
 slavery, 6143 (a large part of which votes 
 were fraudulent), and for the constitu- 
 tion, without slavery, 569. Three thou- 
 sand and twelve of this vote were re- 
 turned from three precincts — Oxford, 
 Shawnee, and Kickapoo, — which every- 
 body knew had not combined a voting 
 population of three hundred — the two 
 precincts first mentioned being in the 
 Shawnee Reserve, where there were no 
 white men legally settled. 
 
 Then came the election for State officers 
 and legislature under the Lecompton con- 
 stitution, which had been fixed in the 
 schedule of that instrument to be held on 
 the fourth of January, 1858. The conven- 
 tion of the Free State part}', held on the 
 second of December, was re-convened, to 
 assemble in the Congregational church at 
 West Lawrence on the twenty-third of 
 December, to settle the question whether 
 the Free State party should or should not 
 go into the election of officers under the 
 Lecompton con.stitution, and elect, as they 
 could easily do. Free State executive offi- 
 cers and a Free State legislature. 
 
 This was the final crisis in the struggle 
 for freedom in Kansas. If the Free State 
 
 men should elect a majorit}' of the State 
 and local officers and of the legislature, 
 under the Lecompton constitution, we 
 would thereb}- kill that attempted usur- 
 pation in Congress, because the South 
 could gain nothing b}' admitting the State 
 into the Union, with the certainty that 
 the constitution would be immediatel}' 
 amended, prohibiting slavery utterly and 
 forever. While, if the Free State men 
 should refuse to vote, the pro-slavery men 
 would control all departments of the pro- 
 posed State government, and the State 
 would, in all probability, be admitted 
 under the Lecompton constitution. 
 
 The expediency of our electing officers 
 under the Lecompton constitution was 
 obvious to a large niajorit}' of the Free 
 State men of Kansas, and was well sup- 
 ported by The Herald of Freedom, The 
 Leavenworth Times, and other influential 
 newspapers of our party. That policy 
 was also urged on us by many influential 
 friends of free State in and out of Con- 
 gress — by my father, the Hon. Thomas 
 Ewing, of Ohio, who wrote my elder 
 brother, Hugh Ewing, then in partner- 
 ship with me in the practice of law at 
 Leavenworth, most strongly insisting that 
 the Free State men in Kansas, who were 
 known to have a large majorit}^ in the 
 Territor}-, should elect the State officers 
 and members of the legislature under the 
 Lecompton constitution, and thus take 
 possession of the government and control 
 it, so as to make Kansas a free State — just 
 as in the then recent October election the 
 Free State men chose the legislature and 
 took possession of the territorial govern- 
 ment. The Hon. Salmon P. Chase, then 
 governor of Ohio, wrote an tirgent letter 
 to Governor Robinson, advising the vot- 
 ing policy, which, as well as the letter 
 from ni}' father, was read to the conven- 
 tion with great effect. The Hon. Samuel 
 F. Vinton, an eminent member of the 
 House of Representatives from Ohio, 
 wrote a similar letter to me, which I read 
 to the convention, in which he said that 
 if the Free vState men should stubbornly 
 and fanatical!}' refuse to adopt this pol- 
 ic}', he for one would abandon the strug- 
 gle in Congress in our behalf. 
 
 But that was the path leading to a peace- 
 ful solution of the Kansas strife, and many 
 of the most active Free State leaders in 
 Kansas did not want to tread it. They 
 
THE STRUGGLE TOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 hoped for armed collisions 
 between the Free State men 
 and the general government, 
 expecting that all of the 
 states would become in- 
 volved, and that although 
 the North would be in re- 
 bellion, and the South would 
 have the prestige and power 
 of the legitimate govern- 
 ment, the superior numbers 
 and resources of the North 
 would certainly triumph. 
 John Brown, of Osav/ot- 
 tomie, was the inspirer, 
 though not the active leader, 
 of this radical wing of the 
 Free State party. He re- 
 garded slavery as a crime, to 
 be expiated in blood, and 
 himself as a chosen instru- 
 ment of its expiation — " the 
 sword of the Lord, and of 
 Gideon." His oft-repeated 
 maxim was, " Without blood 
 there can be no remission." 
 His dream was of the aboli- 
 tion of slavery b}^ Northern 
 ba\'onets, aided by the torch 
 of the slave. He never 
 doubted that the blacks would rise en 
 masse, as soon as the North should be in 
 the field to support them. He and his in- 
 fluential followers, mostly correspondents 
 of Eastern papers, were, therefore, deter- 
 mined to defeat the proposition to vote 
 for officers under the Lecompton constitu- 
 tion, and were active and enthusiastic in 
 securing control of the convention, held 
 on the twenty-third of December, 1857. 
 
 Charles Robinson, who had been chosen 
 governor under the Topeka constitution — 
 a man of great ability, earnestness and 
 honesty of purpose, — presided at this con- 
 vention and strongly urged the adoption 
 of the voting policy. IMost of the recog- 
 nized leaders of the Free State part}- sup- 
 ported it — George W. Brown (now of 
 Rockford, Illinois) ; S. N. Wood, P. C. 
 Schuyler, M. F. Conway, J. P. Root, Rob- 
 ert ]\Iorrow, James Davis, S. C. Pomero^-, 
 myself, and others, spoke for that policy. 
 General James H. Lane, who was by many 
 regarded as preeminently the leader of the 
 Free State party, was absent — non-com- 
 mittal — craftj'-sick. 
 
 For several days preceding the assem- 
 
 JAMES H. LANE, IN 1858. 
 
 bling of the convention, it was rumored 
 throvigh the Territory that the United 
 States marshal at Fort Scott held a writ, 
 issued out of the District Court there, 
 commanding him to arrest James Mont- 
 gomer}-, one of the radical Free State 
 leaders, on an indictment for treason, 
 and that the marshal had been fur- 
 nished with a posse of two companies 
 of Federal infantry, to enforce obedience 
 to the writ, and was about to set out for 
 Sugar Mound, in Linn county, where 
 INIontgomery lived and where several hun- 
 dred Free State men had assembled to re- 
 sist and prevent his arrest by force of 
 arms. 
 
 The debate in the convention, on the 
 proposition to take part in the election, 
 was protracted throughout the first day, 
 and was very acrimonious and exciting. 
 On the second day, December 24th, the 
 debate went on, and the friends of the 
 voting policy had almost silenced opposi- 
 tion, when "General" E. B. Whitman, one 
 of General Lane's political lieutenants, 
 rode up to the church where the conven- 
 tion was being held, and, dismounting 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 from " his steed of foam," strode into the 
 convention and on to the platform, booted 
 and spurred, "stained with the variation 
 of each soil" 'twixt Sugar Mound and 
 Ivawrence, and in a passionate speech de- 
 clared that he had just ridden eight}- 
 luiles, from Sugar INIound, without stop- 
 ping for food or sleep, to call the people 
 of Kansas to arms : that General Lane 
 was in command there, and a desperate 
 battle was impending with the Federal 
 troops. The excitement that followed 
 this announcement was furious and inde- 
 scribable. I sprang on a table and bitterly 
 denounced the statement as an obvious 
 trick and fraud to control the convention. 
 But the vote was forced at once, and the 
 voting policy was re- 
 jected — ayes, sixty- 
 four ; noes, seventy- 
 four. The vote was 
 taken by representa- 
 tive districts, and prox- 
 ies were received ; but 
 the vote of persons ac- 
 tually present, stood 
 sixty-four for the vot- 
 ing policy, tosixt3'-fi ve 
 against it. In the ex- 
 citement and confusion 
 which followed, the 
 convention adjourned 
 sine die. 
 
 While the assem- 
 blage was breaking up, 
 I called several friends 
 to accompany me, and 
 hastening to W. Y. 
 Roberts, vice-president of the convention 
 and a strong supporter of the voting pol- 
 ic}-, we persuaded him to announce to the 
 dispersing crowd that the friends of that 
 policy who were willing to bolt the action 
 of the convention would meet at Ma.sonic 
 Hall on Massachusetts street, at seven 
 o'clock that evening, to nominate a State 
 ticket and organize the Territory for the 
 election. The announcement was received 
 with violent denunciations and 3'ells of dis- 
 sent. The bolters' meeting, when convened 
 that evening, was broken up by a mob, 
 who put out the lights and forcibly ejected 
 all the bolting delegates from the hall. We 
 re-convened, on the invitation of George 
 W. Brown, in the basement of his Herald 
 of Freedom printing-office. Only thirteen 
 bolting delegates appeared, out of sixty- 
 
 d by Del' Oi me. 
 
 GEORGE \V. BROWN, IN' 
 
 four, W'ho in the convention supported the 
 voting policy to the last. A Free State 
 ticket was nominated, as follows: for gov- 
 ernor, George W. Smith; lieutenant-gover- 
 nor, W. Y. Roberts ; secretar}' of state, P. 
 C. Schuyler ; state treasurer, A. J. ^leade 
 (now a resident of New York Cit}-) ; state 
 auditor, Joel K. Goodin ; representative 
 in Congress, INIarcus J. Parrott, who was 
 then delegate in Congress from the Terri- 
 tory — all tried and true Free State men ; 
 all pledged, if they should be elected and 
 the State admitted under the Lecompton 
 constitution, to favor an immediate call 
 of a convention, to wipe out every vestige 
 of that odious constitution, and to frame 
 and adopt a new one — a pledge which 
 was exacted from ever}' 
 Free State candidate, 
 big and little, nomi- 
 nated in the bolting 
 movement. 
 
 The next da}- — 
 Christmas — a large 
 edition of The Herald 
 of Freedom was gotten 
 out by George W. 
 Brown, its editor and 
 proprietor — to whose 
 pen and purse, zeal 
 and sense, the Free 
 State cause, from be- 
 ginning to end of the 
 struggle, was greatly 
 indebted for its tri- 
 umphs. It w-as filled 
 with arguments and 
 information in favor 
 of our movement, and w-ith tickets for 
 the Free State candidates. I hired every 
 livery-stable horse and rider that could 
 be hired in Lawrence, and had many 
 volunteers, who carried The Herald of 
 Freedom post-haste to every considerable 
 settlement in the Territory. It will be 
 considered, I hope, only a pardonable 
 vanity in me to say that I personally ex- 
 pended in the movement over a thousand 
 dollars — being all the money I had or 
 could borrow^ We had but nine days in 
 which to organize and conduct the cam- 
 paign, over a settled territory two hun- 
 dred miles square, without a railroad. 
 
 The pro -slavery men and newspapers 
 fought us fiercely. Fully half of the Free 
 State newspapers supported our move- 
 ment, but the other half bitterly opposed 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 and ridiculed it, calling our voters' as- 
 semblage "Brown's cellar-kitchen con- 
 vention," and calling ns all " disap- 
 pointed, ambitious kickers" and "sore- 
 heads." S. N. Wood, of Council Grove, 
 who had been appointed chairman of the 
 executive committee b}' the bolters' con- 
 vention, did great work in organizing 
 and conducting the campaign. Never was 
 there a nine days' canvass conducted over 
 a greater area, under greater difficulties, 
 or more vigoroush'. The result was 
 watched in Washington and throughout 
 Kansas with breathless interest, as likely 
 to settle forever the vexed Kansas ques- 
 tion one way or the other. 
 
 At Leavenworth, a town of perhaps four 
 thousand people, the 
 largest in the Ter- 
 ritory, the election 
 "was regular and the 
 vote full, free and 
 fair on both sides. 
 At Mound City, in 
 Linn county, ISIont- 
 gomer}' seized and 
 destroyed the ballot- 
 box and broke up 
 the election when 
 about half the votes 
 had been cast. At 
 Sugar Mound, also, 
 the ballot-box was 
 destro3-ed and the 
 ballots scattered to 
 the winds by a party 
 of Free State men 
 who were hostile 
 to the voting pol- 
 icy ; and so, also, at Clinton. In Wa- 
 baunsee county it was the boast of some 
 of the extreme Free State men that the 
 feeling was too intense there to suffer an 
 election for officers under the Lecompton 
 constitution to be held in any precinct in 
 that county. The night before the elec- 
 tion I organized a company of about 
 thirty armed Free State men under Cap- 
 tain Losee, and towards morning went 
 with them to Kickapoo, a pro-slavery vil- 
 lage numbering a few hundred people, 
 eight miles above Leavenworth and di- 
 rectly across the IMissoun river from 
 Weston, Missouri, a large town which had 
 contracted the habit of sending its men 
 at every election to swell the pro-slavery 
 vote in Kickapoo. We rode into Kicka- 
 
 Engraved by DcV Ornic. 
 
 ELI THAYER, IN 1885 
 
 poo at daybreak, and had lied our horses 
 and taken position near the polling place 
 before the voting commenced, intending 
 to see who voted and how man\'. Our 
 appearance caused great excitement, and 
 threats of violence especially among the 
 IMissourians, who came from Weston as 
 fast as the one ferry-boat could bring them. 
 B\'ten o'clock, we were so overwhelmingly 
 outnumbered that all of our troop had been 
 induced to return to Leavenworth, excejit 
 onl_v the venerable John C. Vaughan, 
 Wolff, Currier, and myself. We four gave 
 our pistols to our retiring comrades, as 
 more likeh' to provoke attack on us than 
 to be useful in defence against such num- 
 bers. We then took position near the 
 polling window in a 
 corner made by a 
 projection of the 
 building, where we 
 might be crushed, 
 but from which we 
 could hardly be 
 ejected, and there 
 we stood all day. 
 The voters, gener- 
 ally, made head- 
 quarters in several 
 saloons, from which 
 the}' poured out 
 from time to time, 
 noisy, drunk, armed 
 with two revolvers 
 to the voter — each 
 man voting several 
 times; several gangs 
 voting as often as 
 six times, — threat- 
 ening us with death if we did not leave 
 for Leavenworth. A friend of mine named 
 Spivey, who was a clerk for General 
 Whitfield, in the Kickapoo land office, 
 and who was a sober and sensible man, 
 acted as an intermediary between the 
 mob and us, warning us most solemnly 
 to leave for Leavenworth, or we would 
 be murdered. I told vSpivey, and had 
 him tell the mob, that we would not 
 leave until the polls should close, and 
 that they would not dare to fire on us, 
 because they knew that if they should 
 kill one of us, the Free State people of 
 Leavenworth would burn both Kickapoo 
 and Weston to the subsoil before morning. 
 Just before the polls clo.sed, to mark the 
 end, Mr. Currier and I voted— as we had 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 a right to do, being citizens of that coun- 
 ty. Our votes were numbered 550 and 
 551. Only two votes were cast after we 
 voted, when the polls were closed, the to- 
 tal vote being 553. Whereupon, about 
 dark, after having submitted to a good 
 deal of hustling and rough handling, we 
 rode off for Leavenworth in a shower of 
 rotten eggs and pistol shots. 
 
 The returns of the election, as provided 
 in the schedule of the constitution, were 
 sent to John Calhoun, at Lecompton, who 
 was surve^'or-general of Kansas, and pres- 
 ident of the convention. He made and 
 published his official statement of the 
 result in each county, showing the elec- 
 tion of the entire pro-slavery State ticket, 
 and a pro-slavery majority in both branches 
 of the legislature. His decision was 
 prima facie correct, and bej'ond review or 
 reversal by any territorial authority. 
 Calhoun forthwith left for Washington to 
 report the result to Buchanan's adminis- 
 tration, that it might be officially laid be- 
 fore Congress. 
 
 Immediately on this announcement, 
 and solely on my own impulse and initia- 
 tive, I went to the territorial legislature, 
 which had assembled at Lawrence in reg- 
 ular session, January 4, 1858, and was con- 
 trolled by the Free State party, and there 
 procured the passage of a la»^ approved 
 
 JAMES MONTGOMERY, IN 1858. 
 
 January 14, 1858, creating a board to in- 
 vestigate and report upon the frauds com- 
 mitted at the election on the adoption of 
 the constitution, December 21, 1857; and 
 also at the election for officers under the 
 constitution, January 4, 1858, and in the 
 returns thereof Henry J. Adams, J. B. 
 Abbott, Dillon Peckering, E. L. Taylor, 
 H. T. Green, and myself, composed the 
 board. L. A. McLean, who was Sur- 
 veyor-General Calhoun's chief clerk, was 
 summoned to appear before us as a wit- 
 ness, together with other pro-slavery men 
 employed in the office of the survej'or- 
 general at Lecompton, where the election 
 returns and all the archives relating to 
 the Lecompton constitution had been 
 filed. McLean appeared and swore that 
 Calhoun had taken all the returns relat- 
 ing to the elections under the Lecompton 
 constitution with him to Washington. 
 This struck us as a very improbable storv ; 
 but McLean stuck to it with a respectful- 
 ness, dignity and sincerity of manner 
 which were very impressive. No one 
 could be found to throw a doubt on his 
 statement. We had the surveyor-gen- 
 eral's office at Lecompton searched for 
 the returns by our sergeant-at-arms, but 
 not a scrap of them was found. Our in- 
 vestigation, obviousl}', could amount to 
 nothing without these returns ; so, with 
 Calhoun in Washington, and his subordi- 
 nates swearing that he took the returns 
 with him, we felt utterly baffled and 
 beaten. 
 
 At a late hour of the second night after 
 INIcLean's testimon}' was given, as I was 
 returning to my room at the Eldridge 
 House, I was accosted in the dark, on a 
 lonely street, by a man whom I did not 
 know, who asked my name, but refused 
 to give his own. He handed me his re- 
 volver as an assurance of his pacific in- 
 tentions, saj'ing that he had been watch- 
 ing on the street for me for several hours. 
 He said he had heard a report of McLean's 
 testimony before our board, and desired 
 to know if it was given as stated. I re- 
 plied that it was. He said it was a lie, 
 and he could prove it, if it would do any 
 good. He said, however, that he lived at 
 Lecompton, and would in all probability be 
 murdered if he should be known to have 
 informed on McLean and his associates. 
 I satisfied him that if he could and would 
 give me information exposing the falsity 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 of McLean's testimony, his action should 
 not be known, and that with that infor- 
 mation, we could drive Calhoun and his 
 gang from the Territory, and defeat the 
 Lecompton constitution. 
 
 He then said that late in the night pre- 
 ceding the day when McLean appeared as 
 a witness before our board, he (McLean) 
 had buried a large candle-box under a 
 woodpile adjoining his office, and that 
 he had been seen by Charley Torrey, the 
 janitor, who slept in the building and 
 who told my informant. He then gave 
 me his name as Henry W. Petrikin, and 
 described himself as being a clerk in the 
 office of William Brindle, receiver of the 
 United States land office at Leconipton. 
 This was a voucher 
 for his good faith, 
 for I knew enough 
 of General Brindle 
 to know that he 
 would have no ras- 
 cals about him. 
 
 Next da}', aided 
 by my official posi- 
 tion as one of the 
 commissioners to in- 
 vestigate the elec- 
 tion frauds, I ob- 
 tained from Josiah 
 Miller, probate 
 judge of Douglas 
 county, (now de- 
 ceased), a search- 
 warrant directed to 
 Captain Samuel 
 Walker, sheriff of 
 Douglas c o u n t 3' 
 
 (who had already done loyal service to 
 the Free State cause and was eager to 
 do more), commanding him to enter upon 
 and search the premises of the survey- 
 or-general, in Lecompton, and (if prac- 
 ticable) to find, take and bring before 
 Judge Miller all the original returns of 
 elections on or under the Leconipton con- 
 stitution. Enjoining Judge Miller to se- 
 crecy, I then sought Sheriff Walker and 
 requested him to pick out a dozen fight- 
 ing men well armed, to go with him as a 
 posse, and told him I had a writ for him 
 to execute, and would tell him at day- 
 break next morning where to go and what 
 to do. Captain Walker was on hand punct- 
 ually, with his trusty squad in a back 
 alley ; and after receiving the warrant and 
 
 Engraved by Del Oi in,:. 
 
 CHARLES ROBII 
 
 full instructions from me, he set out un- 
 observed from Lawrence for Lecompton, 
 eight miles away. He pounced upon the 
 surveyor-general's premises early in the 
 morning, dug up a buried candle-box from 
 under a great woodpile adjoining the 
 office, and before noon he rode up Massa- 
 chusetts street, in Lawrence, at the head 
 of his squad, holding the candle-box on 
 the pummel of his saddle. 
 
 C. W. Babcock, president of the coun- 
 cil ; G. W. Dietzler, speaker of the House 
 of Representatives ; and J. W. Denver, 
 acting governor, met the Investigating 
 Board in the office of Judge ]\Iiller. Sher- 
 iff Walker made return of his search-war- 
 rant and delivered the candle-box to Judge 
 INIiller, who opened 
 and produced from 
 it all the returns of 
 the election for offi- 
 cers of the Lecomp- 
 ton constitution, 
 which McLean had 
 sworn had been 
 taken by Calhoun to 
 Washington. The 
 Kickapoo returns 
 had swollen to 995, 
 from 553, which was 
 the actual vote 
 (chiefl}' fraudulent) 
 when the polls 
 closed, there being 
 442 names added to 
 the list of voters 
 after the names of 
 SON, IN 1S58. Currier and Kwing, 
 
 and after the polls 
 closed. Oxford, which had a legitimate 
 vote of about one hundred, had the num- 
 ber increased in the returns, through ob- 
 vious forgery, to 1266 ; the returns from 
 Shawnee showed about fifty real voters, 
 to which had been added names — fic- 
 titious names, bringing the total up to 
 729. The fraudulent additions were as 
 apparent on the face of the returns as 
 would be extensions of the legs in a 
 boy's trowsers. They were all on the 
 pro-slavery side ; but proving insuffi- 
 cient to effect the desired result, a return 
 from Delaware Crossing, in Leavenworth 
 county, which had been honestly made by 
 the two judges of election, was forged, by 
 splicing with a sheet containing 336 addi- 
 tional names of pro-slavery voters in a 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 different handwriting and in different ink 
 — these fraudulent votes electing the 
 whole legislative ticket of eleven mem- 
 bers from Leavenworth count\', and giv- 
 ing both branches of the legislature to 
 the pro-slavery part3^ 
 
 These entire returns showed 6875 votes 
 cast for Free State candidates, and, count- 
 ing in all the returns, valid and fraudu- 
 lent, a few hundred more for pro-slavery 
 candidates. On the same day, the fourth 
 of January, 1858, an election was held 
 under a statute then recently passed by 
 the Free State legislature, to take a vote 
 on the adoption or rejection of the Le- 
 coinpton constitution, at which 10,226 
 I'otes were cast against it, and none in its 
 favor. This last-named vote shows the 
 whole strength of the Free State party of 
 Kansas, while the vote of 6875 for Free 
 State candidates under the Lecompton con- 
 .stitution, shows that 3351 Free State men 
 who voted against the Lecompton consti- 
 tution did not vote for officers under it. 
 In other words, the Free State men who 
 opposed the voting policy were thus 
 shown to comprise only one-third of the 
 Free State part}'. 
 
 Immediately on this exposure (January' 
 28, 185S), I swore out a warrant for the ar- 
 rest of McLean, for perjury. But as soon 
 as the candle-box had been dug up from 
 the woodpile, he had fled with his fellow- 
 conspirators, never to return to Kansas. 
 I met ]\IcLean six years later, when I was 
 in command of our troops at Fort David- 
 son, adjacent to Pilot Knob, Missouri, 
 ninety miles below St. Louis. He was 
 then chief of staff of General Sterling 
 Price, who was marching on vSt. Louis at 
 the head of an army of twenty-two thou- 
 sand men. McLean came to me under a 
 flag of truce, demanding the surrender to 
 Price of the little fort and its garrison of 
 1060 men, together with its enormous ac- 
 cumulation of quartermaster, commissary 
 and ordnance stores, which were greatlv 
 needed by the rebel army. The demand 
 being refused. Price stormed the fort, but 
 was repulsed with great slaughter. 
 
 It is but just to McLean to say, that I 
 have a letter from Ely Moore, of Law- 
 rence, dated March i, 1894, which says that 
 he was living at Lecompton on the twent}'- 
 fifth of January, 1858, when the candle- 
 box containing the returns was buried 
 under the woodpile, and that it was done 
 
 b}' another person, whom he names, with- 
 out McLean's presence or knowledge. 
 And further, that McLean really believed, 
 when he testified before the board, that 
 the returns had been taken b}- Calhoun 
 to Washington. He says McLean fled 
 the night following the vmearthing of the 
 candle -box, because appearances indi- 
 cated that he had committed perjury, 
 though, in fact, he was innocent of the 
 crime. 
 
 The exposure of the frauds struck the 
 Lecomptonites dumb. Every incident 
 was telegraphed and published ever}'- 
 where. On the day of the exposure, 
 Henry W. Petrikin, who is now living at 
 Montoursville, Pennsylvania, got a brief 
 statement of the facts signed by the pre- 
 siding officers of the two houses of the 
 legislature, and by Acting - Governor 
 Denver, which statement he carried post- 
 ha.ste to Wa.shington and laid before Pres- 
 ident Buchanan in presence of Senator 
 Bigler, of Penns3'lvania ; Senator Dick- 
 inson, of New York ; General Sam Hous- 
 ton, of Texas ; Hon. Allison White, of 
 Pennsylvania ; and R. Bruce Petrikin, 
 of Pennsylvania. I followed in a da}' or 
 two with the report of our board to inves- 
 tigate the election frauds, accompanied by 
 an abstract of the candle-box returns, and 
 a memorial to Congress, all of which I 
 caused to be printed at once and laid on 
 the desk of each member of Congress. 
 
 Thereupon, the bill then pending in 
 Congress for the admission of Kansas in- 
 to the Union, under the Lecompton con- 
 stitution, dropped dead. A few months 
 afterwards the English bill was forced 
 through Congress by the administration. 
 It provided for the submission of the Le- 
 compton constitution to a free vote of 
 the people of Kansas, and offered them 
 five and a half millions of acres of the 
 public lands for common schools and a 
 universit3% and five per cent, of all the 
 public lands in the Territory (being 
 about two and a half millions of acres 
 more ) for internal improvements — all 
 the grants being conditioned on the ac- 
 ceptance of that constitution b}' the 
 people. The oflFer and the constitution 
 were contemptuoush' rejected on the sec- 
 ond of August, 1858, by a vote of 11,300 
 against the proposition, to 1788 in its 
 favor. Thereupon, the Lecompton con- 
 stitution was abandoned, and Kansas was 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 
 From a photo by 
 
 J. J. Haivei:, Bosiu 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 •^Kj^ 4y?^yyyuiJi -o/^^-t^^ o^^,c<^ ,^^^^22^^ ^W^C^ ';Hi^^ /e 
 
 kept out of the Union for more than two 
 years longer to do penacce for its devo- 
 tion to freedom. 
 
 The waves which rolled high in Kansas 
 during the political storm of 1855-6-7 ex- 
 tended throughout the Northern States 
 and were long in subsiding. As late as 
 the fall of 1S60, the Kansas questions 
 were uppermost for political discussion 
 in every Northern state. On my way 
 through Cincinnati to Lancaster, Ohio, 
 during the political campaign in October, 
 TS59, I was taken to make a speech at a 
 
 Repviblican meeting in Fifth street, Market 
 space, then being addressed by Tom Cor- 
 win and Caleb B. Smith. When I reached 
 the stand, Corwin was speaking. He 
 had been discussing only Kansas ques- 
 tions. As I ascended the steps, he turned 
 and greeted me with some pleasant words 
 of recognition, and then branched off on 
 Kansa-s^politics, appealing to me as a wit- 
 ness and a participant. He told with mock 
 gravity of our many governments there ; 
 spoke' of the Lecompton territorial gov- 
 ernment, the Topeka provisional govern- 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN KANSAS. 
 
 ment, the Lecompton State government, 
 the Topeka State government, and the 
 Leavenworth State government, and de- 
 scribed them all as being in full opera- 
 tion, electing State, territorial, county, 
 township, and city officers under each 
 government, and all in full operation at 
 the same time. He said it brought on 
 a general election every month, and a 
 county, city, or township election every 
 other day. He said : "My fellow -citi- 
 zens : Kind and benignant nature always 
 responds to the wants and habits of men ; 
 and I now make the prediction that the 
 next generation in Kansas will be born 
 with ballot - bo.xes in their bellies, like 
 'po.ssums ; so they can vote whenever 
 the\^ want to ! " 
 
 Thirty-six years have passed since the 
 Free State struggle in Kansas ended. I 
 have never, until recentl}', told all of this 
 story to any but my own famil}-. In 
 making it public now, I wish not to seem 
 unmindful of the heroism of the Free 
 State men in the earlier phases of the 
 contest, when many suffered capture, im- 
 prisonment and death in the cause ; nor 
 of the wisdom and forbearance of Gov- 
 ernor Robinson and his associates, and 
 the patriotic resistance to party dictation 
 of Governors Walker, Stanton and Den- 
 ver, which contributed so much to the 
 happy solution of the controversy. I 
 have written only of the last phase of 
 that protracted struggle, wliich ended in 
 February, 185S, in the abandonment of 
 all attempt to force slavery on Kansas. 
 
 Those brilliant, patriotic and enthu.sias- 
 tic young men of the press^William A. 
 Phillips, lately deceased, who crowned his 
 glorious services for freedom in Kansas, 
 with a service equally glorious in the 
 army ; James Redpath, Richard J. Hinton, 
 and their associates, Kegi, Realf, Cook, 
 Tappan, Walden, and others, whose po- 
 litical letters filled all the Republican 
 papers of that day with reports of the 
 struggle for freedom in Kansas^ were 
 imbued with John Brown's fervid faith 
 
 ^ ! (V , ' ' 
 
 that slaver}' would be abolished through 
 a war of the North against the South, 
 brought on hy collisions in Kansas be- 
 tween the Free State part}- and the Fed- 
 eral government. In their correspondence 
 with the Republican newspapers, they 
 wrought up and magnified the incidents 
 of the Kansas struggle in 1855-6-7, when 
 it was a struggle of force and blood ; but 
 the}' were not friendly to the efforts by 
 which the Lecompton constitution was at 
 last peacefully defeated. Hence the final 
 and decisive movements which I have 
 here narrated were ignored or underes- 
 timated in the contemporary press, and 
 have been almost overlooked in nearly 
 all the histories of the Kansas struggle. 
 The importance of that struggle cannot 
 be overestimated. It was the prelude to the 
 War of the Rebellion, and prepared the 
 people to realize its magnitude and to re- 
 solve that it should be a fight to the finish. 
 But for this long preparation, it is not 
 improbable that the Rebellion would have 
 ended in a compromise, leaving slavery, 
 though crippled, a lasting cause of bad 
 blood and strife between the sections. 
 Had John Brown's purpose to bring on a 
 war between the sections succeeded, with 
 the South in possession of all the power 
 and prestige of the General government, 
 and the North in rebellion, all the nations 
 of the world would have stood by the 
 South and the General government ; 
 while the North would have been di- 
 vided, overwhelmed and conquered. But 
 there was a higher power which foiled 
 John Brown's mad scheme. The great 
 sweep of events, from the Kansas Ne- 
 braska bill to the surrender at Appomat- 
 tox, was no doubt divinely directed to 
 unify and purify our people for their 
 glorious mission. Whoever bore an hon- 
 orable part, however humble, on the 
 Northern side in the great struggle, has 
 reason to thank God for having made him 
 an instrument in preserving this benefi- 
 cent Republic, which is the hope and 
 light of the world. 
 
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