CHAPTER XXXVIII.

TERRITORIAL OFFICERS.

"Twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jeffries for a judge."

WHILE this work has been going through the press, I have been questioned about the Chief Justice of the Territory, and the Marshal of the Territory. I met with these gentlemen at a time when it was supposed that Fort Leavenworth would become the seat of Government; but I did not follow them to the Shawnee Mission, or to Lecompton, the theatre of their chief exploits. The Chief Justice is small of stature, very fair complexion, with quite an intellectual expression of countenance. In Baltimore, where the Judge, I believe, formerly resided, he would, I think, have made a favorable impression; but on the Border men have a faculty of losing their dignity, almost without exception. I think that "model of deportment," Mr. Turveydrop, would have retired in disgust from Kansas.

I have seen the Chief Justice sitting, where better men had sat before him, on a box, in that general rendezvous, the Sutler's office, at Fort Leavenworth; and I have heard him talk as a partisan on Kansas affairs, in such a strain as pot-house politicians would have relished. His construction of the Law suits his humor:

“Affection,

Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood

Of what it likes, or loaths."

The butchers can at any time be impanelled for a jury, and the modern Jeffries will sit as judge of the Law, and command innocent men to be smitten contrary to the Law.

Marshal Donaldson came from Ohio to Kansas. He is about sixty years of age, perhaps; and the better days of his life are not spent in Kansas. He is quite tall tall and slender. He must have been quite anxious to obtain office. He needed it, like many of us. He could make himself quite agreeable in every society to be met with on the Border. My impression is that he saw the storm rising, when he first reached the territory; but he did not, to my knowledge, define his position until after the Legislature had met and made laws; and, until he found that Reeder's impartiality was rewarded by removal from office; then the Marshal became alarmed; and has ever since been all that could be desired by the "Self-Defensives." "Free State settlers" have been hunted by him as were the Seminole Indians, in Florida, by our army. Extermination, or the most abject submission, was the order in the camp of the Marshal.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

OUR COUNTRY.

IN 1850, after the settlement, as it was considered, of the difficulties attending the discussion of the Slavery question, a doctor of divinity in our Episcopal Church, of transcendent abilities, and of oratorical powers not surpassed in the nation, preached a Sermon on the "Union" in our chief city.* It was justly regarded as a great and patriotic effort,-but the most singular mystery connected with the whole affair, is how the great magician could take the "Union" for his text, and not preach a political sermon!

That the great man did not preach on political subjects is most evident; he was not taken to task or abused in our church papers at the time; neither did the more than pious secular press warn the doctor of the danger, the impropriety, and the awful responsibility of dragging politics into the pulpit! Why, you simpleton, the passage of a "Fugitive Slave Bill" was effected at that crisis; "The Union" was made a hunting ground for runaway negroes, and was this not a subject worthy of prayer, preaching and thanksgiving? Call you that politics? Why, no.

* The preacher was invited to re-deliver the sermon in Washington, which request was complied with, and I believe the Representatives' Hall was thrown open for the purpose

Many a time have I said that I would walk ten miles to hear the divine I allude to preach, I so much admired his inimitable manner; he possesses the ars celare artem to perfection: but if the magic skill which must have guided his pen while he composed a sermon on the text, "Union," and at the same time kept it free from politics, is to be purchased at any sacrifice in my power, while I compose a sermon on the text, "Our Country," and yet have no political bearing, then let me know what that sacrifice is to be? Name it! At what sacrifice can I obtain the superhuman power?

Oh, Nature, thou hast not been kind to me! Whatever I write or say is taken by the mass of men to mean pretty nearly what my words declare, according to their dictionary definitions; while polished rhetoricians lecture on the Moon, and the press generally report the effort to have been a profound disquisition on green cheese!"

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"Our Country" is my text for a farewell discourse. Is the theme too great for a priest? Is the history of our country written in hieroglyphics? No; but if it were, in all probability you would call on a priest to interpret. Confucius was not our lawgiver; but if he had been, a priest would have as good an opportunity to catch the spirit of the philosopher as any pot-house politician. The Constitution and the Laws of our country are written in plain English, and why may not a priest understand them so as to give an opinion without committing treason? Beardless youths mount the tripod to indite their leaders on Constitutional Law

it is their legitimate province-read, mark, and learn wisdom! But you, priests, keep out of the arena, dabble not in the filthy pool of politics. The layman has successfully battled with the divine for the right of private judgment in the interpretation of the "Higher Law;" the divine has an opportunity now to show that he may possibly be able to lead a layman to acknowledge that there is a responsibility attaching to the skirts of the gown in the tremendous issues which now involve the honor, the happiness, and the stability of "Our Country."

The honor of our country is involved in the nature of our legislation on the question of human Slavery. The African Slave-trade is piracy, according to our laws. This is well; but is the law founded on just principles? If the law was not in our Statute Book, would the African Slave-trade be piracy according to the law of nature? If we should find savage princes. willing to sell what they had stolen, or captured in battle, have we not a right to buy and sell again? The law declares that this trade is piracy, to be punished by death. The law is founded on the right of man to his liberty, and to his own life, and the profits of his own labor. In addition to this principle of right, civilized men have been induced to arrive at this conclusion, by taking a higher and a holier view of the destiny of man, than that arrived at by barbarians. "God has made of one blood all the families of men to dwell on the face of this earth," the origin of man is one, his destiny is the same.

The evils which attend the African Slave-trade is