USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 55
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"Pawnee City." I have, therefore, by the direction of the President, to notify you your functions and authority as governor of the territory of Kansas are hereby terminated.
I am sir, respectfully, &c.,
W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary.
Andrew H. Reeder, Esq., Governor of the Territory of Kansas.
On the 31st of July his removal was announced officially and on the 16th of August the Governor sent the following letter to the Legislature :
To the Honorable Members of the Council and the House of Representa- tives of the Territory of Kansas:
Gentlemen :- Although in my message to your bodies, under date of the 21st instant, I stated that I was unable to convince myself of the legality of your session at this place, for reasons then given, and, although that opinion still remains unchanged, yet, inasmuch as my reasons were not satisfactory to you, and the bills passed by your houses have been, up to this time, sent to me for approval, it is proper that I should inform you that after your adjournment of yesterday, I received official notification that my functions as Governor of the Terri- tory of Kansas were terminated. No successor having arrived, Secretary Woodson will of course perform the duties of the office as Acting Governor.
A. H. REEDER.
The Territorial Secretary, Daniel Woodson, became thus the Acting Governor of Kansas Territory. He was in complete accord with the de- signs of the Legislature and with the intention of the South to force slavery on Kansas. In this purpose he never wavered, and he never scrupled at anything he believed would accomplish that end.
The Legislature having won its battle with the Governor, and being legally organized and officially recognized and without restraint, pro- ceeded with the transaction of its business in a rapid manner. It enacted a code of general laws modeled on those of the State of Missouri. In many of its sections the Missouri laws were taken in toto, a provision being added that where the name Missouri occurred, Kansas Territory was to be understood as inserted. These laws had been taken by Missouri from the code of New York, and were entirely unobjectionable. In prin- ciple many of them are still the laws of Kansas, although the code was repealed when the Free-State men came into power. The Legislature, however, enacted a slavery code which was infamous. It fixed the penalty of death for any person who should decoy away slaves or incite insurrec- tion among them. It disqualified as jurors all anti-slavery citizens. To cause any rebellion among slaves, the penalty was death. To, in any manner, induce any slave to conspire against a citizen of the Territory, was death. To present or circulate any book or paper for the purpose of inciting rebellion or revolt on the part of slaves, free negroes, or mulattos, against any citizen of the Territory, was to ineur the penalty of death. All the officers for the counties in the Territory were appointed by the Legislature. These were to hold their offices for two years, and until after the general elcetion of 1857. Those officers necessary to be ap- pointed after the adjournment of the Legislature were to be named by some officer which the Legislature had already appointed. The per- Vol. 1-27
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manent seat of government was fixed at Lecompton, in Douglas County, about nine miles west of Lawrence. The Free-State citizens of the Terri- tory were disfranchised by the following section :
SECTION 1. Every free white male citizen of the United States, and every free male Indian who is made a citizen by treaty or otherwise, and over the age of twenty-one years, who shall be an inhabitant of this Territory, and of the county or district in which he offers to vote, and shall have paid a Territorial tax, shall be a qualified elector for all elective offices ; and all Indians who are inhabitants of this Territory, and who may have adopted the customs of the white man, and who are liable to pay taxes, shall be deemed citizens ; Provided, That no soldier, seaman, or mariner in the regular army of the United States shall be entitled to vote by reason of being on service therein; and Provided further, that no person who shall have been convicted of any violation of any of the provisions of an act of Congress entitled, "An Act respect- ing Fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters," approved February 12, 1793, or of an act to amend and supplementary to said act, approved September 18, 1850; whether such conviction were by criminal proceeding or by civil action for the recovery of any penalty prescribed by either of said acts in any courts of the United States, or of any State or Territory, of any offense deemed infamous, shall be entitled to vote at any election, or to hold any office in this Territory ; and Provided further, That if any person offering to vote shall be challenged, and be required to take an oath or affirmation, to be administered by one of the Judges of the election, that he will sustain the provisions of the above recited acts of Congress, and of the act entitled, "An act to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas," approved May 30, 1854, and shall refuse to take such oath or affirmation, the vote of such person shall be rejected,
A law was passed organizing a Territorial Militia. The two Major- Generals provided were A. M. Coffey, and William P. Richardson.
Four Brigadier Generals were created : William A. Heiskell, William Barbee, F. J. Marshall and Lucien J. Eastin.
Eight Colonels were created as follows: William C. Yager, George W. Johnson, S. A. Williams, Skilsman Fleming, Robert Clark, James E. Thompson, David M. Johnson and Archibald Payne.
Hiram J. Strickler was appointed Adjutant and Thomas J. B. Cramer was appointed Inspector General.
These slavery laws were unreasonable, and their barbarous provisions made them impossible of execution. The Free-State men were prohibited from holding office, yet were taxed. They were not allowed to have any voice in the government, but were required to sustain it with their sub- stance. It would seem that the Legislature designed to goad the Free- State men into resistance of these laws. But not satisfied with the in- famies already enacted, on the last day of the session, a concurrent reso- lution was offered by the Speaker, while Mr. Anderson was in the chair, and it was adopted as follows :
WHEREAS, The signs of the times indicate that a measure is now on foot fraught with more danger to the interests of the Pro-slavery party
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and to the Union than any which has yet been agitated, to wit : To organize a national Democratie party; and
WHEREAS, Some of our friends have already been misled by it; and WHEREAS, The result will be to divide Pro-slavery Whigs from Demo- erats, thus weakening our party one-half; and
WHEREAS, We believe that on the success of our party depends the perpetuity of the Union; therefore,
Be it Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Council con- curring therein, That it is the duty of the Pro-slavery party, the Union men of Kansas Territory, to know but one issue, Slavery ; and that any party making or attempting to make any other is, and should be held, as an ally of abolitionism and disunion.
This resolution was intended to define the issue upon which the battle would be waged by the slave power for supremacy in Kansas. It fixed the political status of the citizens of Kansas Territory. That all Anti- slavery citizens of the Territory would revolt at the slave code and the restrictions placed upon them was a foregone conclusion. The Legislature adjourned without any provision for a session in 1856, but in October of that year members of the succeeding House were to be elected.
GEN. JAMES H. LANE, FIRST U. S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS ¿Copied by Willard, Topeka, from Daguerreotype owned by C. S. Gleed]
CHAPTER XXII
LANE
The issue of the Kansas Free State for April 30th. 1855, contains the following item of news :
DISTINGUISHED ARRIVAL
Col. James H. Lane, late member of Congress from Indiana, arrived in our place on the 22 inst., with his family, all in good health and spirits. He is comfortably ensconsed in a log cabin, and will in all probability remain permanently with us. His design is to live in the Territory.
James Henry Lane was born in Kentucky, near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, June 22, 1814. His father was Amos Lane, a noted Indiana politician, and credited with being the first man in Indiana to suggest the name of Andrew Jackson for President of the United States. The Lanes were of the stock called by Prentis, "The from everlasting to everlasting Scotch-Irish." Amos Lane was of New England ancestry, but as a young man went to New York. At Ogdensburg he met and married Miss Mary Foote. He was born in Connecticut, and was of a distinguished New England family. She was a woman of piety, and was for forty years, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was possessed of more than an ordinary share of good common sense, and a desire to accomplish something in the world. She was the inspiration of her husband's efforts to enter the practice of law.
Amos Lane came from New York to Cincinnati as early as 1804. In the spring of 1808 he moved to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. He was there refused admittance to the bar. IIe then erossed the river into Kentucky, and after further moving about, returned to Lawrenceburg in 1814. In 1816 he was elected to the Legislature of Indiana, and was Speaker of the House. He was elected two other terms in the Legislature, and in 1833 he was elected to Congress, where he served several years. Until his death, in 1850, he was the ruling power in politics in southern Indiana in the Democratic party.
It was to his mother that James H. Lane owed most of his genius. She was, in every sense, a superior woman, and she has been spoken of as having had a "eoal of fire in her heart," so ambitious, so restless, and so full of energy was she. Whatever education her son obtained she im- parted. She designed him for the ministry in the church of her faith.
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IIer life was one of constant effort in his younger days. While her hus- band traveled over the country to attend the migratory "Circuit Court," she kept boarders and taught school "in her own cabin." In the days of Lane's boyhood, Indiana was the frontier. The noisy, turbulent, often dangerous, frontier is a school better equipped to develop strength of character, self reliance and resource in emergeney than any other. Theory counts for but little-action for everything. In such frontier school did Lane become familiar with the motives and forees that move man, especially frontiersmen. The exaggerated style of speech, the bois- terous and aggressive manner, the personal courage, the iron constitution, the remarkable and tireless persisteney in the prosecution of an enter- prise onee engaged in-these were the inheritance from his environment on the frontier. In this school was Lane well learned. His faults (and he had many), were also those of the frontier, where they were not eon- sidered of so great consequence as in older and better ordered society.
While he was well learned in this rude frontier school, it must not be supposed that he was unlettered. Ile possessed a fair knowledge of the ele- mentary branches of learning. For some years he was engaged in trade in Lawrenceburg in company with a brother-in-law. It seems to have been a pork packing establishment, combined with the forwarding of the produee of the country to market. In those days New Orleans was the only mar- ket of consequence for the productions of the Ohio Valley. He, like Lincoln, pushed his own flat-boat back and forth, to and from that mart, but in this voeation he was handicapped by his peeuliar bent of mind. Such occupations are ever irksome to natures contented only to lead. In their view, the result is not worth the effort. They long for extremes, for opportunity, for leadership. Lane was a born leader of men. He saw in polities a field exactly to his liking and no doubt his tendency in that direction was inherited. He studied law, was admitted to the bar and practiced in partnership with his father. Ilis entrance into polities was in a small way-an election to the common council of Lawrence- burg. Ile was repeatedly re-elected. He made his first publie speech in 1832 in favor of General Jackson. It is said that his effort was a very creditable one. IIe was elected to the legislature in 1845, and in the winter following was a candidate before the convention of his party for the nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor, being defeated by only one vote.
In the fall of 1842 he was married to Miss Mary E. Baldridge, a granddaughter of General Arthur St. Clair.
In July. 1846, Lane raised a company of volunteers at Lawrenceburg for the Mexican War. He had his company ready before the requisition of the President reached the State of Indiana. He marched his company, of which he had been elected Captain, to New Albany. There it was made a part of the Third Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, and Lane was elected Colonel of the Regiment. This Regiment hurried to Mexico and was made a part of General Taylor's command. Colonel Lane served under Taylor until the spring of 1847. In the battle of Buena Vista he distinguished himself as a brave soldier and an able officer. In this
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battle the command of a large part of the army devolved upon him, and he acquitted himself with honor.
Colonel Lane returned to Indiana in July, 1847, and raised the Fifth Indiana Regiment, of which he was elected Colonel, and which he took to Mexico. This Regiment was placed under General Butler, and did not reach the City of Mexico until after its capture by General Seott. Colonel Lane was given a responsible position in the army which occu- pied the city. In this capacity he was very solicitous for the welfare of the Mexican people. So much did they appreciate his efforts in their behalf, that they presented him with a costly Mexican flag, embroidered in gold. They also presented him with a very fine sword. These val- nable articles were taken from his house by the guerillas who sacked Lawrence under the lead of Quantrill. Aaron Palmer and a companion sceured these valuable articles, and in their ignoranee they supposed the Mexican flag was one which had been presented to Lane by the ladies of Leavenworth. It was dark in color, and the guerillas called it "Lane's black flag." Palmer and his companion cut it in two. Each wrapped the half of it around his body under his clothing, and thus they carried it into Missouri.
In 1849 the Democratic party of Indiana nominated Lane for Lieu- tenant Governor and he was elected by a large majority. Ilis party made him an elector at large in the Presidential campaign of 1852. He was elected, and he east the vote of the State of Indiana for Franklin Pierce for President. He was elected by the Democratic party to the 32nd Congress and voted for the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He afterwards said that he voted for the bill beeanse he was instructed to do so.
There was for many years in Kansas a persistent repetition of the terms of an agreement said to have been made between Lane and Doug- las. Lane was first opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Douglas suc- ceeded in convincing Lane that the passage of the hill would make him (Douglas) President of the United States. Lane was to go to Kansas, organize the Democratic party there, and when the Territory should be admitted as a State, he was to be elected United States Senator and control the patronage of the State under the administration of Douglas. In the meantime he was to control the patronage of the administration then in power, so far as the influence of Douglas could make it possible. There is no doubt but that some such arrangement existed between Douglas and Lane.
Early in April, 1855, Lane began his preparations to move to Kansas. lle came by way of St. Louis, where he took boat for Leavenworth. John Armstrong, one of the founders of the City of Topeka, had spent the winter in St. Louis, where he had gone after his visit to the site of Topeka, to look after some nursery stock which he had shipped from New York. By chance he took the boat up the Missouri River upon which Lane and his family had embarked. There was with Lane, Thomas C. Shoemaker, who had been appointed to a position in the Public Land Office of the Territory. Mr. Armstrong said that both Lane and Shoe- maker had their families with them. In conversations held with Lane as
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the boat ascended the Missouri, Armstrong convinced Lane that Lawrence was a better location for him than Leavenworth. He left the boat at Kansas City, and he and Armstrong went to Westport to secure con- veyance to Lawrence. By stipulation with the keeper of a livery stable, a light conveyance was secured for the members of the party, and the household effects were forwarded within a day or two.
In height Lane was well above six feet. His eyes were dark and rest- less, and when he was aroused they burned with the depth and intensity of charcoal fires. His features were good-forehead high, nose finely cut, mouth firm, chin and jaw square and heavy. His arms were long, and every old time Kansan delighted to tell of his long and bony fore- finger, and its potency in all Kansas political affairs. His presence was commanding. Like Cassius, he bore a lean and hungry look. His energy was limitless, his tenacity of purpose was persistent, indomitable. He was possessed of wonderful vitality, and his whole organism was one of vigor and magnetism. He became the leader in establishing liberty in Kansas.
Political rancor reached its greatest height in Kansas, and Lane was often the object of bitter denunciation. In politics he was King, and from the pinnacle of success, he looked down on the raging hate of his enemies. He was the head of the Western population of Kansas-that element which really made Kansas free. The New England emigrants- the promoted emigration-were his implacable foes. Writing of him forty years later, Senator John J. Ingalls said :
His energy was tireless and his activity indefatigable. No night was too dark, no storm too wild, no heat or cold too excessive, no distance too great, to delay his meteoric pilgrimages, with dilapidated garb and equipage, across the trackless prairies from convention to convention. His oratory was voluble and incessant, without logic, learning, rhetoric or grace ; but the multitude to whom he perpetually appealed hung upon his hoarse and harsh harangues with the rapture of devotees upon the oracular rhapsodies of a prophet and responded to his apostrophies with frenzied enthusiasm. He gained the prize which he sought with such fevered ambition.
Ingalls had long before described the oratory of Lane, and had, in fact, made it the model for his own. Here is the characterization of it :
His voice is a series of transitions from the broken scream of a maniac to the hoarse, rasping gutturals of a Dutch butcher in the last gasp of inebriation; the construction of his sentences is loose and disjointed; his diction is a pudding of slang, profanity and solecism; and yet the electric shock of his extraordinary eloquence thrills like the blast of a trumpet; the magnetism of his manner, the fire of his glance, the studied earnestness of his utterances, finds a sudden response in the will of his andience, and he sways them like a field of reeds shaken by the wind.
Lane did not move immediately for the accomplishment of the pur- pose for which he came to Kansas. He was studying the conditions then existing in the Territory with a view to finding out what really
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should be done for the interests of the people. From the small amount of energy he exerted in the interest of the Democratic party, it would seem that he had become discouraged as to the outlook in the Territory for that organization. He evidently saw that the Democratic party could not accomplish the work of making Kansas a free State. But he felt that he should at least make an effort to set it up. On the 27th day of July, 1855, a meeting in the interest of the National Democracy was held at Lawrence. It assembled in the office of Dr. J. N. O. P. Wood at seven o'clock P. M. Lane was elected President of the meeting on motion of C. W. Babcock, and Dr. Wood was named as Secretary. Hugh Cameron moved that a committee of five members be appointed to draft resolutions. This committee was composed of Charles E. Chapman, C. W. Babcock, Dr. James Garvin, J. S. Emery and IIugh Cameron. They brought in the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted.
Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting, the best interests of Kansas require an early organization of the Democratic party upon truly national ground, and that we pledge ourselves to use all honorable exertions to secure such a result.
Resolved, That we fully indorse and reaffirm the Democratic plat- form as laid down at the National Democratic Convention held at Balti- more in 1852.
Resolved, That we indorse the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and claim the right, unmolested, of exercising all the powers granted to us under the provisions of that bill.
Resolved, That we cordially invite the citizens of all the States of this Union who desire to participate in the management of our affairs to come and settle among us.
Resolved, That as true American citizens, we can appreciate the rights of the citizens of the different States of this Union, both of the North and South, and that by no aet of ours will we trample upon those rights or interfere in anywise with their domestic institutions.
Resolved, That, while we observe the rights of the citizens of the different States, we will expect them to reciprocate. That we feel we are fully capable of managing our own affairs, and kindly request the citizens of Northern, Sonthern, distant and adjoining States to let us alone.
Resolved, That while making this request, we wish it distinctly under- stood that we appreciate the right of suffrage as the most important privilege guaranteed to us by the founders of our institutions, and that we regard the ballot-box as the palladium of our liberty, and will not, if in our power to prevent, permit the privilege to be wrested from us, or permit the ballot-box to be polluted by outsiders or illegal voting from any quarter.
Resolved, That we will use our best exertions to procure the nomina- tion of National Democrats to office, and will zealously support such candidates.
Resolved, That we cordially invite the co-operation of all National men of either party who prefer principle to faction and union to disunion.
This meeting attracted no attention in the Territory, and next to none in Lawrence. The Pro-Slavery party had already adopted a course. Atchison and his followers knew exactly what they wished to
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clo, and desired no help from any Kansas source, especially from Lane and Lawrence. The National Democracy, as understood by Lane and the country at large, was not the Democracy of Price, Atchison, and others in Missouri. This was a special Democracy organized for a cer- tain purpose. Lane determined to cast his lot with the Free-State party. He first met with the Free-State men at a meeting in Lawrence on the 18th of August, 1855, and his speech on that occasion has been preserved. It was as follows:
MR. PRESIDENT :
If I believed a prayer from me would do any good, it would be that you might be imbued with the wisdom of Solomon, the caution of Wash- ington, and the justice of Franklin. I am glad to see so many here this inclement day. It requires wisdom, it requires manhood to restrain passion. I say it as a citizen of Kansas, I wish we had wisdom to-day. There is the existence of a union hanging upon the action of the citizens of Kansas. Moderation, moderation, moderation, gentlemen! I believe it is the duty of each of ns to define our position. I am here as anxious as any of you to secure a free constitution for Kansas. A lesson I received from childhood was never to speak of man or woman unless I could speak well of them. It is represented that I came to Kansas to retrieve my political fortunes, but yon, gentlemen, should know that I was urgently solicited to be a candidate for another term of Congress, but I positively declined. I would vote for the Kansas-Nebraska bill again. I desire Kansas to be a free State. I desire to act with my brethren, but not in a manner to arouse the passions of the people of the other States. I would not repudiate the Legislature, but the acts of that Legislature which contravene the rights of popular sovereignty.
On account of his having made an effort to organize the Democratic party he was not at first accepted with full confidence by the Free- State people. Lane was soon aware of this fact. He sought an oppor- tunity to make a more extended declaration. He appointed a meeting to be held in Lawrence, stating that he would discuss the political issues of the day and champion the Free-State cause. That meeting was described by Milton W. Reynolds in an article in the Kansas City Times in 1885, as follows :
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