KANSAS INVESTIGATION BY CONGRESS. 241 and formed a Free-State Constitu- | the_sitting delegate, John W. Whitfield, tion, under which they asked admission into the Union as a State. The XXXIVth Congress assembled at Washington, December 3d, 1855, no party having a majority in the House. Several weeks were consumed in fruitless ballotings for Speaker, until, finally, a majority voted-Yeas 113, Nays 104-that a plurality should suffice to elect after three more ballots. Under this rule, Nathaniel P. Banks, Jr., of Massachusetts, received 103 votes to 100 for William Aiken, of South Carolina, and 11 scattering. It was thereupon resolved-Yeas 155, Nays 40— that Mr. Banks had been duly elected Speaker. The House, on the 19th of March, resolved-Yeas 101, Nays 93-to send a Special Committee to Kansas, to inquire into the anarchy by this time prevailing there. That Committee was composed of Messrs. William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri, who immediately proceeded to Kansas, and there spent several weeks in taking testimony; which the majority, on their return to Washington, summed up in an able and searching Report. Their conclusions were as follows: “First: That each election in the Territory, held under the organic or alleged Territorial law, has been carried by organized invasions from the State of Missouri, by which the people of the Territory have been prevented from exercising the rights secured to them by the organic law. "Second: That the alleged Territorial Legislature was an illegally constituted body, and had no power to pass valid laws; and their enactments are, therefore, null and void. "Third: That these alleged laws have not, as a general thing, been used to pro tect persons and property and to punish wrong, but for unlawful purposes. "Fourth: That the election under which holds his seat, was not held in pursuance of any valid law, and that it should be regarded only as the expression of the choice of those resident citizens who voted for him. Fifth: That the election under which the contesting delegate, Andrew H. Reeder, claims his seat, was not held in pursuance of law, and that it should be regarded only as the expression of the choice of the resident citizens who voted for him. "Sixth: That Andrew H. Reeder received a greater number of votes of resident citizens than John W. Whitfield, for Delegate. "Seventh: That, in the present condition of the Territory, a fair election cannot be held without a new census, a stringent and well-guarded election law, the selection of impartial judges, and the presence of United States troops at every place of election. Eighth That the various elections held by the people of the Territory preliminary to the formation of the State Government, have been as regular as the disturbed condition of the Territory would allow; and that the Constitution framed by the Convention, held in pursuance of said elections, embodies the will of a majority of the people." Whitfield held his seat, notwithstanding, to the end of the Congress, despite strenuous efforts by the Republican members to oust him; and a bill admitting Kansas as a State under her Free Constitution was first defeated in the House by 106 Yeas to 107 Nays, but afterward reconsidered and passed by 99 Yeas to 97 Nays. In the Senate, which was strongly pro-Slavery, it was promptly defeated. Meantime, the settled antagonism in Kansas between the Federal authorities and the Territorial functionaries and enactments recognized and upheld by them on the one side, and the great mass of her people on the other, had resulted in great practical disorders. On the 21st of November, 1855, William Dow, a FreeState settler on the Santa Fé road, near Hickory Point, was shot dead in open day by one Coleman, a proSlavery neighbor, in plain sight of garding him as a deadly and dangerous foe. His posse was made up of pro-Slavery men, including two of those who had witnessed and abetted the murder of Dow, though Coleman however active in raising, fitting out, and arming the party-had been persuaded not to accompany it. Branson was found by them asleep in his bed, and taken out by Jones, who professed his intent to take him to Lawrence for examination. Whether he did or did not entertain that purpose, he lingered and drank by the way, so that a party of the neighboring Free-State settlers, fifteen in number, was hastily collected, by which Jones and his party were intercepted near Blanton's Bridge over the Wakarusa, and Branson rescued from Jones's custody. There was no actual collision-not even a gun snapped-but the Free-State men formed across the road in a bright moonlight evening, and called Branson to come over to them, which he did, notwithstanding free threats of shooting on the part of Jones and his followers, answered by a cocking of Sharpe's rifles and revolvers on the other side. Jones, who had been speaking daggers up to this time, wisely concluded to use none, though his party was well armed, and decidedly the more numerous. Branson and his rescuers moved off toward Lawrence, the citadel of Free-State principles, which the discomfited sheriff protested he would soon visit at the head of five thousand men, and several persons. Dow was unarmed, and was set upon by three armed pro-Slavery men, who had no cause of quarrel with him but their difference in politics, although they made a pretense of claiming the land on which he had settled. The murderer fled to Missouri, but immediately returned to Shawnee Mission, and surrendered himself to Gov. Shannon, but was allowed to go at large. The body of the murdered man lay in the road from noon till evening, when Jacob Branson, the Free-State settler with whom he boarded, hear ing of his death, went after and recovered it. Five days thereafter, a meeting of Free-State men was held at Hickory Point, at which the murder and its authors were forcibly denounced, and a Committee appointed to bring the murderers to justice. This meeting was made the pretext for bringing on a collision between the people and the authorities. Branson was soon after arrested on an affidavit of one of the three armed men who had compassed the death of Dow, who swore that he was in fear of his life. The arrest was made by a party headed by Samuel J. Jones, postmaster at Westport, Mo., and one of the foremost in the conspiracy by which Kansas had been so far subjugated to "BorderRuffian" rule through the wholesale corruption of her ballot-boxes. For his zeal and efficiency in this work, the fraudulent Legislature at Shawnee Mission had made him sheriff of Douglas County, wherein are Law-"wipe out." He accordingly called rence and Hickory Point. Of course, the "Free-State" settlers, constituting a large majority of the people of that important county, scouted his assumption of official authority, re on Gov. Shannon to order out three thousand militia, to enable him to "execute the laws," and sent to President Pierce an affidavit that he had been resisted by "forty abolition ists.” THE CAPTURE AND SACK OF LAWRENCE. by proclamation from the governor, and the whole Missouri border came over to execute vengeance on Lawrence and the Free-State men. This army encamped at Franklin, a proSlavery settlement, a few miles from Lawrence, and there remained several days, during which Thomas W. Barber, a Free-State man, returning from Lawrence to his home, seven miles off, was shot dead by some of them, but no other serious damage done. Finally, articles of negotiation and adjustment were agreed upon between Gov. Shannon and the Free-State leaders, in Lawrence, which suspended the feud for the present. The Missourians dispersed, and the troubled land once more had peace. 243 The call was promptly made | May, 1856, Lawrence was surrounded and surprised by various parties of enemies, part of them under Gen. Atchison, who, with the "Platte County Rifles," and two pieces of artillery, approached from Lecompton on the west, while another force, composed in good part of the volunteers from the Atlantic Southern States, under Col. Buford, beleaguered it on the east. They bristled with weapons from the United States Armory, then in charge of the Federal officers in Kansas. Nearly all the pro-Slavery leaders then in Kansas, or hovering along the Missouri border, were on hand; among them, Col. Titus, from Florida, Col. Wilkes, from South Carolina, Gen. Stringfellow, a Virginian, Col. Boone, hailing from Westport, and many others of local and temporary fame. The entire force was about 800 strong, having possession of Mount Oread, a hill which commanded the town. The pretext for this raid was a desire to serve legal processes in Kansas, although deputy marshal Fain, who held a part of those processes, had been in Lawrence the evening before, and served two writs without a sign of resistance, as on several previous occasions. He now rode into the town with ten men, and arrested two leading Free-State citizens, no one making objection. Meantime, the posse, so called, were busy in the suburbs, breaking open houses and robbing their inmates. Fain remained in town until afternoon, eating dinner with his party at the principal hotel, but neglecting to pay for it; then returned to the camp on the hill, and was succeeded by "Sheriff Jones" of that county, whose authority, being derived from In the Spring of 1856, the proSlavery party on the Kansas border were reënforced by Col. Buford, from Alabama, at the head of a regiment of wild young men, mainly recruited in South Carolina and Georgia. They came in military array, armed, and with the avowed purpose of making Kansas a Slave State at all hazards. On one of their raids into Kansas, a party of Buford's men, who were South Carolinians, took a Mr. Miller prisoner, and, finding that he was a Free-State man, and a native of South Carolina, they gravely tried him for treason to his native State! He was found guilty, and escaped with his life only, losing his horse and money. Kansas now swarmed with the minions of the Slave Power, intent on her subjugation; their pretext being the enforcement of the laws passed by the fraudulent Legislature. On the morning of the 21st of the sham Legislature, the people did | ed at $150,000. None of them were A not recognize. Jones rode into town at the head of twenty men, at three P. M., and demanded that all the arms should be given up to him, on pain of a bombardment. The people, unprepared to resist, consented to surrender their artillery, consisting of a twelve-pound howitzer, and four smooth-bore pieces, carrying each a pound ball. All these had been buried some days before, but were now dug up and made over to Jones. A few muskets were likewise surrendered by their owners. The pro-Slavery army now marched down the hill, and entered the south end of the town, where Atchison made a speech to them, declaring that the Free-State Hotel and the two Free-State printing-offices must be destroyed. "Sheriff Jones" declared that he had an order to that effect from Judge Lecompte, of the Federal Court. The whole force accordingly marched into the heart of the town, destroyed the printing-offices, and fired some fifty rounds from their cannon at the Free-State Hotel, which, being solidly built of stone, was not much damaged thereby. Four kegs of gun-powder were then placed in it and fired, but only two of them exploded, making little impression. Fire was now applied to the building, and it was burnt to the bare and blackened walls. The dwelling of Gov. Robinson was next set on fire, and, though the flames were twice extinguished, it was finally consumed. The total loss to the citizens of Lawrence by that day's robbery and arson was estimat 29 29 Elected Governor under the embryo organization, by the great body of her settlers, of Kansas as a Free State. killed or wounded; but one of the ruffians shot himself badly, and another was killed by a brick or stone, knocked by one of their cannon from the upper story of the Free-State Hotel. Such were the beginnings of the so-called "Kansas War," a desultory, wasteful, but not very bloody conflict, which continued, with alternations of activity and quiet, throughout the next year. One of its most noted incidents is known as the "battle of Black Jack," wherein 28 Free-State men, led by old John Brown, of Osawatomie, fought and defeated, on the open prairie, 56 "border ruffians," headed by Capt. H. Clay Pate, from Virginia, who professed to be an officer under Marshal Donaldson. It terminated in the surrender of Pate and all that remained of his band, twenty-one men, beside the wounded, with twenty-three horses and mules, wagons, provisions, camp-equipage, and a considerable quantity of plunder, obtained just before by sacking a little Free-State settlement, known as Palmyra. The Legislature chosen under the Free-State Constitution was summoned to meet at Topeka on the 4th of July, 1856, and its members assembled accordingly, but were not allowed to organize, Col. Sumner, with a force of regulars, dispersing them by order of President Pierce. 30 The village of Osawatomie, in the southern part of the Territory, was sacked and burned on the 5th of June by a pro-Slavery force, headed 30 Since known as Maj.-Gen. Edwin V. Sumner: fought bravely in several battles of the War: died at Syracuse, N. Y., early in 1863. THE SACK OF LEAVENWORTH. by Gen. Whitfield. But few of the male citizens were at home, and there was no resistance. Leavenworth, being directly on the border, and easily accessible from a populous portion of Missouri, was especially exposed to outrages. It was long under the control of the pro-Slavery party, being a military post, and a point whence overland trains and mails were dispatched, and at which a vast Federal patronage was concentrated. The office of The Territorial Register (Free-State) was destroyed by a Missouri band, December 20, 1855. Many collisions and murders occurred here, and in the vicinity; and at length, on the recurrence of the municipal election (September 1, 1856), a large force, mainly of Missourians, took possession of the town; and, under the pretense of searching for arms, plundered and ravaged as they chose. William Phillips, a lawyer, refused to submit to their search, and stood on his defense. He killed two of his assailants, but was finally killed himself; while his brother, who aided him in his defense, had his arm shattered by a bullet. Phillips's house was burned, with several others, and every known Free-State man put on board a steamboat and sent down the river. It was boasted by the Missouri journals that not a single “abolition vote" was cast at that election! Meantime, the emigrants flocking to Kansas from the Free States were arrested on their passage through Missouri and turned back: cannon being planted along the Missouri river to stop the ascending steamboats for this purpose. Not many of these emigrants were actually plundered, 245 save of their passage-money, which was in no case returned. A large party was finally made up of those whose progress to their intended homes had been thus obstructed, who proceeded thither slowly and toilsomely, by a circuitous route through Iowa and Nebraska; but who, on entering Kansas, were met by a Federal military force, and all their arms taken from them. Yet the immigration continued; so that, while the office-holders, the military, and all the recognized power and authority, were on the side of Slavery, the Free-State preponderance among the settlers constantly increased. The pro-Slavery forces made strong incursions or raids into the Territory from time to time, but subsided into Missouri after a few days; and, while a good share of the fighting, with most of the burning and plundering, was done by them, nearly all the building, the clearing, the plowing, and the planting, were the work of Free-State men. Meantime, dissipation, exposure, and all manner of irregularities, were constantly thinning the ranks of the pro-Slavery volunteers from the South, while many of the better class among them, disgusted and remorseful, abandoned their evil work, and shrank away to some region wherein they were less generally detested. Under all its persecutions and desolations, Kansas was steadily maturing and hardening into the bone and sinew of a Free State not only, but of one fitted by education and experience to be an apostle of the gospel of Universal Freedom. |