14

WEAK IN NUMBERS-STRONG IN PRINCIPLE.

distinctive Pro-Slavery party. On the other hand, Lane, Emery, Goodin and others attempted to organize the Democratic party, and were denounced as abolitionists and enemies of the institution of slavery. The opponents of slavery met them upon this ground, if they did not precede them, but that can hardly be claimed; for the friends of a Free State never chrystalized into a solid party until the Big Springs Convention September 5, 1855, when they made provision for another convention at Topeka, September 19, 1855, which appointed an Executive Committee and called an election for Delegates to the Topeka Constitutional Convention,

Still, the small consolidation at Lawrence and a few other places, weak in numbers, but strong in the principles of universal liberty, dates back further. The very first effort at the trial of strength was November 29, 1854, when the anti-slavery men were badly routed, the vote standing; Flenneken, Democrat, 305; Wakefield, Anti-Slavery, 248; Whitfield, Pro-Slavery,2,258, for the election of Delegate to Congress. At this election the Pro-Slavery men showed their determination to conquer the new Territory by invasion and ballot stuffing. The first homocide occurred that day, when Davis, Pro-Slavery, assaulted Kibbe, Free State, and by the latter was killed in self-defense; which was the first murder trial in Kansas, in preliminary hearing before Judge Lecompte on writ of habeas corpus, with a view to bail.

The case was never tried. It was reported in full by John Speer for the Kansas Tribune and Free State.

THE CONFLICT INAUGURATED.

15

The next contest was March 30, 1855, when one thousand men from Missouri and other States, with guns, revolvers and a cannon, boldly camped at Lawrence the evening before the election, and marshalled a portion of them for other points, besides having other bands enter the Territory at Kickapoo, Leavenworth, Atchison and elsewhere. It was the boldest, wickedest assault upon the ballot-box ever made in a country pretending to popular suffrage. The selection of a Pro-Slavery legislature succeeded this outrage, and laws were passed rendering a fair election an impossibility. Practically all opponents of slavery were disfranchised.

This outrage, however, aroused a spirit of resistance that finally became unconquerable. But, to avoid bloodshed, a general determination was evolved to hold an election for Delegate to Congress on a separate day from that selected by what was denounced as the “bogus Legislature.” But it is not the purpose of this work to go into historical incidents beyond what is necessary to elucidate the character on whom we are writing. The history of the Legislature thus imposed upon the people was characterized by an infamy unparalleled by any other in the annals of the Republic. The worst characters in the slaveholding oligarchy had failed to make precedents severe enough to satisfy the vengeance of these usurpers for punishments against the “ abolitionists,” and they made the mere declaration of opinion that “slavery does not legally exist in this Territory” a penalty of not less than two years in the penitentiary,

16

ESPOUSES FREE-STATE PRINCIPLES.

and harboring or feeding a man whom they declared to be a slave was death.

With all this, however, Gen. Lane had nothing to do. He had thus far been quiescent, except in a futile attempt to organize the Democratic party. It was in the initiatory effort to resist this tyranny that he literally broke loose in all his power, fury and energy. Thence onward he was indomitable and unconquerable.

The original provocation for conflict was in what was known as the repeal of the “Missouri Compromise,” embraced in the act “to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas,” which became a law by the signature of President Pierce May 30, 1854. This act repealed the law which “forever prohibited” slavery “north of thirty degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the State" of Missouri, in what was known as the “Louisiana Purchase," acquired under the administration of President Jefferson in 1804.

Tnat compromise law had been considered a sacred compact between the North and the South for a third of a century, the preserver of peace between the slave- and free States.

This action renewed all the hostilities that ever existed

between the slave- and non-slaveholding States, and opened up a contest for supremacy which eventually resulted in the war and the entire annihilation of slavery, and threw the whole burthen of the conflict upon the settlers of Kansas.

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AGGRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.

The animosities were aroused from the introduction of

the bill. The theory of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the author of the bill, was in the right of the people to “ regulate their own domestic institutions in their own way,' and the friends of the measure attempted to popularize it as “squatter sovereignty,” but the ghost of slavery was too transparent. Mr. Douglas' first bill was to organize the Territory of Nebraska; but at the next session, he modified his measure by the act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, in hopes that the idea of one slave- and one free State would concilliate the excitement. The result is written in history, and speaks from the graves of the martyrs of the greatest war the world ever saw. The Northern emigrants to Kansas met the aggressions of slavery at every step. They were boldly told that “the abolitionists might take Nebraska, but if they got Kansas, they would have to fight for it; and most emphatically they carried out their threats. The best claims" were staked out and marked with the names of pro-slavery men, many of whom had never seen the land. My first night's experience will illustrate the situation. Six of us Northern men slept upon the prairies. We were aroused by the yells of a pro-slavery man, as distinct and definable as the rebel yell became afterward. My comrades suggested, as I was a Western man, that I should do the talking. I hailed from Kentucky, where I had once lived. He greeted me with gladness, and informed me that “too many infernal abolitionists are getting into the country, and for my part, I am for