The Government of the Territory was organized in the autumn, Andrew H. Reeder [Pa.] being appointed governor by President Pierce. Although an Administration Democrat he was thought by many to be a Free Soiler. In the election held in the Territory in November John W. Whitfield, an Indian agent and a proslavery man, was chosen Delegate to Congress. On the advice of Senator David R. Atchison many Missourians crossed the line and voted for Whitfield. About this time a number of pro-slavery men founded a town which they named for the Senator and established a newspaper organ there, called the Squatter Sovereign. In an early issue this paper said:

"We can tell the impertinent scoundrels of The Tribune that they may exhaust an ocean of ink, their Emigrant Aid Societies spend their millions and billions, their representatives in Congress spout their heretical theories till doomsday, and His Excellency appoint abolitionist after free-soiler as our governor, yet we will continue to lynch and hang, tar and feather and drown, every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil."

Early in 1855 Governor Reeder of Kansas ordered an election for a Territorial legislature to be held on March 30. Only two Free-Soilers were elected. Eight times as many votes were counted as there were legal voters in the Territories.

Protests were made against the election of four councilmen and thirteen representatives on the ground of fraud, and, on the presentation of evidence of this, Governor Reeder refused to issue to them certificates and ordered new elections to be held in their districts, whereupon the pro-slavery press of Missouri advocated "hemping" the "infernal scoundrel." At the second election all these districts but Leavenworth elected Free State councilmen and Representatives. These the legislature refused to admit and seated the men who had been supplanted. The legislature met at the call of the governor at Pawnee City, in the interior of the State, and immediately adjourned, over the governor's veto, to Shawnee Mission, on the Missouri border. Here

it adopted as the laws of Kansas Territory the laws of the State of Missouri, including those maintaining slavery and prohibiting the agitation of abolition and punishing the agitators. These acts were vetoed by Governor Reeder, but were passed over his veto. The legislature petitioned the President for his removal, which was in due time effected, Wilson Shannon, a Democrat from Ohio, who had been governor of that State, being appointed in his stead. Shannon took an early opportunity to declare that the acts of the legislature were legal and to announce himself in favor of slavery in Kansas.

In the meantime outrages were committed by proslavery mobs, one paper being destroyed which had advocated the rights of the Free Soilers under the law, and its editor forced to flee for his life; and a lawyer of Leavenworth, who had signed the protest against the election in that city, being tarred and feathered, ridden on a rail and finally sold to a negro, who was compelled to purchase him.

The Free Soil settlers held a convention at which they repudiated the legislature and its acts, refused to take part in the election of a delegate to Congress, which had been set by the legislature, and called another delegate convention and a constitutional convention. At the former they elected Governor Reeder as the delegate and at the latter, which was held at Topeka, they formed a Free-State constitution, under which they asked Congress to admit Kansas into the Union.

The events which took place in Kansas during the session of Congress, 1855-56, and to which allusion was made in the debates of the session, were as follows:

An armed conflict between pro-slavery and FreeSoil men arose out of the assassination, on November 21, 1855, of a Free-State settler, William Dow. On an appeal from the pro-slavery sheriff, Governor Shannon issued a proclamation calling out 3,000 militia to "execute the laws." In response to this a pro-slavery army came from the border and encamped on the banks of the Wakarusa River at Franklin, a pro-slavery town near Lawrence. During the encampment, Thomas W.

Barber (or Barbour), a Free State man of the neighborhood, was shot dead by some of the "militia." Finally an armistice was arranged between Governor Shannon and the Free State leaders, and the Missourians dispersed. Thus ended the so-called "Wakarusa War."

Leavenworth was also the scene of many outrages. A band of Missourians entered the town on December 20, 1855, and destroyed the office of the Territorial Register, a Free State paper.

On January 15, 1856, the territorial election under the Topeka (Free State) constitution was held. Charles Robinson (Free State) was elected governor (subject to the approval of Congress) and a Free State legislature was chosen. The organization of the territorial government was set for March 1, 1856, to give Congress time to act, it being hoped that Kansas would be admitted into the Union with the Topeka constitution, and the elections made under it would be ratified..

Congress assembled on December 3, 1855. The Democratic majority in the Senate was considerably lessened and no party had a majority in the House. After balloting for several weeks Nathaniel P. Banks [Mass.], Know-Nothing and anti-Nebraskan, was elected Speaker of the House.

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The President in his annual message (on December 31) declared that nothing had taken place in Kansas which warranted interference by the Federal Executive, and expressed the hope that the people of the Territory, by exercising "their right to determine their own domestic institutions" under Federal protection from outside interference, would be able to suppress "organized resistance to territorial law."

On January 26, 1856, George G. Dunn [Ind.] moved in the House of Representatives to restore the Missouri compromise as a means of settling the agitation. The resolution was carried by one vote, 101 yeas to 100 nays, but failed of passage in the Senate.

Outrages by the Missourians, who were called "Border Ruffians" by the Free State men, continued. On January 21 and 22 Robinson and Gen. James H. Lane, 1 See John G. Whittier's poem, "Burial of Barbour."

leaders of the Free State men, telegraphed to President Pierce, stating that a great invasion was preparing in Missouri and asking him to issue a proclamation against it, and employ Federal troops stationed in Leavenworth to oppose it.

On January 24 the President sent a special message to Congress on the subject. In this he blamed the Emigrant Aid Society for causing the trouble by intervening in the affairs of the Territory in order to defeat the principle of popular sovereignty, and he upheld the organization of the Territory that had been made by the pro-slavery party. He said:

"If the passionate rage of fanaticism and partisan spirit did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be difficult to believe that any considerable portion of the people of this enlightened country could have surrendered themselves to a fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States, as totally to abandon and disregard the interests of the twenty-five millions of Americans."

To this Galusha A. Grow [Pa.], on March 5, alluded at the close of a speech on Kansas:

INJURY OF ONE THE INJURY OF ALL

GALUSHA A. GROW, M. C.

The art of the lawyer and the politician is ever to associate names made odious in the public mind with what they wish to destroy, and upon them attempt to excite the prejudice of men.

Sir, the men of the North have not surrendered themselves to a fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States, but they desire to gladden the heart of the patriot forever with the "contemplation of a portion of territory consecrated to freedom, whose soil shall never be moistened by the tear of the slave, or degraded by the step of the oppressor or oppressed."

The rights of the citizens of Kansas are the rights of the twenty-five millions of Americans, and the wrongs of the one should be adopted as the wrongs of the other. If the rights of one man in this country can be trampled upon by legislative enactment the rights of all may. When men are disfranchised