CHAPTER XXXV. THE KANSAS STRUGGLE. The Kansas-Nebraska Act not an abstraction. Its real object. - Purpose and plan to make Kansas a slave State. - Co-operation. - Southern associations. - Eli Thayer. - New England Emigrant Aid Society. - Town of Lawrence. -Raid from Missouri. - Andrew H. Reeder. - Election ordered. - Frauds. - Border-ruffian policy. Open and shameless avowals. Atchison and Stringfellow. Resistance of free State men. Topeka convention. — Consti tution. XXXIVth Congress. President's message. - -Agreement - Governor Reeder's memorial. Long debate. Investigating committee. -Wilson Shannon.His indorsement of the proslavery policy. Murder of Dow. -— Rescue of Branson. — Call on the governor for troops. — Slight response from Kansas, - Large numbers from Missouri. — Characterized. — Outrages. between the governor and the people of Lawrence. Proslavery disappointment. - Letter of Atchison. Appeals to the South. Senate. Resolutions of Hale, Wilson, and Jones. - President's message. - Speeches of Wilson, Hale, Douglas, and Collamer.—Meeting of free State legislature. Douglas's report. Collamer's minority report. - of freedom determined. Douglas's bill.- Friends THE Kansas-Nebraska' Act was no mere abstraction. Though its most prominent and persistent advocates, in their noisy clamor and claim in its behalf, pleaded chiefly its vindication of the principle of local self-government, it soon became apparent that its ultimate purpose occupied a far higher place in their regard. Slavery, and not popular sov ereignty, was the object aimed at. A practical result, and not the simple enunciation of a theory, however true or important, had been the animating motive of a crusade that rested not with the triumphs already achieved. Calculating that this action of Congress and the close contiguity of slaveholding Missouri, with such co-operation as the known sympathy of the other slaveholding States would afford, could easily throw into Kansas a sufficient population to give to slavery the neces sary preponderance, the slave propagandists regarded their victory in the halls of legislation as tantamount to the final success of their deep-laid schemes. For these schemes had been long and deeply laid. For years had the slaveholders of western Missouri, the real seat of the Slave Power of that State, and their ready servitors at Washington, regarded with special interest the future possibilities of the territory that lay upon its borders. Fearing that it was lost to slavery, they determined that freedom should not profit by it. They therefore encouraged the plan of devoting it to reservations for Indians, and several treaties to that effect were secured. The agents of the government were in both sympathy and complicity with this general scheme and purpose. Even professed ministers of the gospel entered into the movement; and the mortifying fact is on record that the first slaves which were introduced into Kansas were taken by a Methodist missionary. When, therefore, Congress had been dragooned into the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, with its newly invented and much vaunted doctrine of popular sovereignty, it was supposed that the long-cherished plans of the slaveholders were to be realized, and that it was only a question of time when Kansas should become a slave State. For it did not seem to enter their minds that the plighted faith of the nation to these Indians constituted an obstacle to the realization of their schemes, or that it could long stand against exigencies that had coerced the Federal government, and made it prove false to its solemnly recorded promises. But they miscalculated. They did not fully comprehend the forces which freedom had at command, nor the purposes of Providence concerning the nation. The adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the debates preceding, and the widespread discussions attending it, produced a profound impression throughout the land. The North was not only aggrieved and indignant at its gross breach of faith, but it was alarmed. The Slave Power had shown itself ready to oppress not only the blacks but the whites, to crush not the hitherto prostrate race alone, but the nation as well. Patriotism no less than philanthropy, self-preservation no less than humanity, demanded action. The government had proved faithless; it behooved the friends of freedom to cast about for other help. Nor was it a forced conclusion that, if the gov ernment could not be trusted, and the compromises, hitherto deemed sacred, had become a thing of naught, such resources as were within reach should be made available, and that the dogma of popular sovereignty, though designed to strengthen slavery, should, if possible, be made to inure to the cause of freedom. As this was the only alternative left the North, in fealty to its own interests as to those of others, it accepted, in the language of Mr. Seward, a trusted leader, the gage of battle: "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave States! Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on the behalf of freedom. We will engage in competition for the vir gin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers, as it is in right." The purpose to make Kansas a free State and the systematized efforts to carry that purpose into effect mark an impor tant era in the progress of the slavery struggle. It was a deliberate and successful stand made by the friends of freedom against the aggressions of the Slave Power. This and the election of Mr. Banks Speaker of the House of Representatives during the next year indicated somewhat its loosening grasp, under the vigorous blows of its fresh antagonists. But it was a purpose that foretokened a fearful contest, fierce encounters, and bloody strifes. No summer clouds ever met in mid heaven more heavily surcharged with elements of storm and danger. Neither party fully comprehended the magnitude and violence of the struggle on which they were entering. Each was ignorant of the strength the other would exhibit; and each was unaware of the power of assault or resistance itself could and did develop. Had either fully apprehended the severity of the conflict on which it was entering, there might have been hesitation. Once committed, however, there seemed to be no other alternative but to advance till the superior force or tact of the one compelled the other to desist. Both resorted to the policy of combination, though the means relied on were as unlike as the ends in view. The "Blue Lodges" and "Sons of the South," which were formed in Missouri and other slaveholding States, had for their object the making of Kansas a slave State. The "Emigrant Aid" socie ties of New England, though freedom in Kansas was one object, had others which, with their methods, were indicated by their name. Their purpose and plan were to "aid" those who would procure lands and make for themselves homes in the new Territory. They contemplated only peaceful modes, though the emigrants themselves were, of course, compelled to resort to such means of self-defence as the " border ruffian" policy rendered imperative. The New England Emigrant Aid Society, the first and most prominent of these free State organizations, originated with Eli Thayer of Worcester, Massachusetts, a member of the legislature of that State, in the winter of 1854. Preparing a charter, he procured an act of incorporation in February of that year. Immediately on the adjournment of that body, he entered upon the work, in which he was greatly aided by Amos A. Lawrence and J. M. S. Williams of Massachusetts, and John Carter Brown of Rhode Island. Success crowned his labors, the association was soon organized, and on the 19th of July he started with a company of twenty-four for that far-off land. As the successful working up of his plan required his presence at the East, he accompanied them only as far as Buffalo. Charles H. Branscomb, having been appointed agent for the company, had preceded the pioneer colony, and was then in the Territory. To him Mr. Thayer sent a letter of instructions, directing him to take the colony through the Shawnee reservation, and to locate it on the first good town site west thereof, and on the southern bank of the Kansas River. In obedience to these instructions, he made the sagacious selection of the site of the present city of Lawrence; and on that spot this advanced guard of freedom's forces actually pitched their tents, on their arrival in Kansas, in July, 1854. In two weeks another colony of seventy came. With their New England outfit was a steam saw-mill. The new-comers entered in earnest upon the work of making themselves a home on that inviting spot, and soon their canvas tents gave place to more substantial structures. Among the members of the second company were Dr. Charles Robinson and Samuel C. Pomeroy, the one becoming the first governor under the free State constitution, and the latter subsequently a member of the United States Senate. This organized effort of free State men, the fact that they had formed a settlement, and that the town of Lawrence had actually taken form and name, produced a marked impression both North and South. At the North, it kindled anew hopes which the course of events had wellnigh extinguished. Even the possibility of checkmating the foes of freedom in the des perate game on which they had staked so much, and that, too, by the very "moves" which they had proposed for themselves and which by so doing they had suggested to others, gave cour age and stimulus to many in the free States to enter upon this new line of effort, and thus practically to aid in solving the great problem that seemed to defy all other solution. Not only did several additional colonies go from Massachusetts and the other New England States, but similar colonies were formed in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. To this work Mr. Thayer devoted himself with tireless energy and unceasing effort. Fully impressed with the idea that the free States had the power to secure, in this way, freedom to the Territories, he travelled sixty thousand miles, and made hundreds of speeches, enunciating these views, and calling upon the people to join in this grand crusade. But these movements in the free States, with their purpose and plan, so openly and boldly proclaimed, to gain for freedom what the slaveholders had so confidently regarded as insured to them by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, greatly incensed and alarmed them. They immediately set about an effort, not only to prevent the permanent settlement in Lawrence, but to arrest any further attempts in a like direction. Accordingly, while the Eastern settlers were still in tents, a band of two hundred and fifty Missourians marched into the place and took positions on the opposite side of a ravine, and demanded that "the Abolitionists" should take away their tents and immediately leave the Territory. This demand was made and repeated several times, but it was as firmly refused, though the last summons was coupled with the threat that. unless it was complied with in "ten minutes," they should be |