USA > Kansas > Kansas : the prelude to the war for the union > Part 7
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This bill, though energetically combated by anti-slavery senators from distrust of President Pierce, in whose hands the appointment of com- missioners was lodged, and from apprehensions that in some way Missouri would again decisively in- terfere, passed the Senate, but did not survive the opposition of the House. That body originated and sanctioned a measure known as the Dunn bill, the leading features of which were - the election of a new territorial legislature in November, the
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dismissal of criminal prosecutions for offenses against territorial laws, and the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, though it was stipulated that slaves, already in the territory, should not be disturbed before. January, 1858. This scheme failed in the Senate.
Out of the various bills, compromises, substi- tutes, amendments, which appeared in Congress during the spring and summer of 1856, a single measure only emerged that reached any practical importance - the appointment by the House of Representatives of an investigating committee, the members of which were William A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman, of Ohio, and Morde- cai Oliver, of Missouri. This committee proceeded to the territory, held its first meeting at Kansas City April 14th, examined three hundred and twenty - three witnesses, who represented every shade of political opinion, and on the 1st and 2d of July presented a report, in which a great mass of faets is accumulated wholly ereditable to neither side.
Early in the spring the local campaign showed signs of life. Sheriff Jones, who had a touch of genius for finding quarrel in a straw, led off in the revived operations. He still pursued the pol- icy which barely missed success in the Wakarusa war, fumed about Lawrence with much insolent ado, and attempted withont success to arrest S. N. Wood, who, in addition to taking a prominent
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part in the Branson matter, had made himself still more obnoxious by doing effective free-state service on the stump in Ohio. Jones pursued his efforts to arrest different people at Lawrence, un- til at last he got a sharp blow in the face from somebody who resented his familiarities. There- upon he rode to Lecompton and reported to Gov- ernor Shannon that he had been assaulted in the discharge of his duties, and demanded a military escort for his protection. April 23d he reap- peared in town accompanied by Lieutenant Mc- Intosh and eleven soldiers. He succeeded in ar- resting six citizens on the charge of "contempt of court," as they declined to assist him in making arrests during former visits. Instead of proceeding to Lecompton with his prisoners, he remained in town, possibly with the hope of ex- citing an attempt at rescue. Though threats had been freely made against him, he chose to spend the night in McIntosh's tent rather than in less exposed quarters. During the evening Jones and the lieutenant went out to a neigh- boring water barrel for a drink. While they were there a shot was fired from a little knot of men standing at no great distance. "I believe that was intended for me," said Jones, with a shrug. The lieutenant thought he must be mistaken as several pistols had been discharged, apparently into the air, since night-fall. "That was intended for me," said Jones, when they returned to the
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tent, "for here is the hole in my pants." The lieutenant hurried out to investigate the affair. "I immediately joined the crowd," he reports, "and while speaking to them heard another shot, and at the same time some of my men exelaimed, ' Lieutenant, the sheriff is dead. '" Not many seconds later a young man - J. P. Filer by name - with his pistol still smoking - burst into a cabin hard by where two or three chums were sit- ting, and said, " Boys, hide this ; I've shot Sheriff Jones." After a hasty consultation they decided not to betray the culprit, and pledged themselves by a solemn oath to silence. For a quarter of a century the secret was faithfully kept.
The shooting intensified the general excite- ment. A publie meeting of the citizens of Law- rence on the following day denounced it "as the act of some malicious and evil-disposed individ- ual," for whose arrest they offered a reward of five hundred dollars. The congressional investi- gating committee were in session at Lawrence, and Whitfield, pro-slavery delegate to Congress, seized upon the unfortunate affair as a plausible pretext for attempting to break down the investigation. He declared himself in fear for his life, expatiated on the unreasonableness of asking witnesses to venture into an assassin's den, and actually fled the town, but crept back in a few days on finding that his absence did not affect the committee. Pro-slavery newspapers eulogized Jones as a no-
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ble patriot, " shot down by the thieving paupers of the North." Though the wound did not prove fatal, reports of his death were current and roused fiercer passions upon the border than lay within the compass of any Branson-rescue exploit. " His murder shall be avenged," said the " Squatter Sovereign," "if at the sacrifice of every aboli- tionist in the territory. . .. We are now in favor of leveling Lawrence and chastising the traitors there congregated, should it result in the total destruction of the Union."
At this juncture the pro-slavery cause was pow- erfully reinforced by the appearance in the field of the territorial judiciary. Early in May the grand jury of Douglas County was in session at Lecompton. This jury Judge S. D. Lecompte, chief justice of the territory, instructed at large in reference to the extraordinary conditions and responsibilities under which they met. An ex- position of the nature of treason figured in the address, the tenor of which, the judge writes, De- cember 31st, 1884, " has been most grossly mis- represented."
" I have been charged with resorting to a constructive treason as within the scope of legitimate prosecution. I made no such flagrant departure from recognized American authorities - I did not adopt as legitimate or tenable the monstrous proposition of stretching by con- struction the language of the Constitution to create a crime not within its clear and unavoidable import. I
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remember as if it were but yesterday that I distinctly and explicitly repudiated the doctrine of constructive treason. I remember, too, that I explained the phrase- ology of the Constitution on this point in the spirit, if not in the words, of Wharton. Passing to the state of public affairs I took up the question whether treason could be committed against the United States by levy- ing war upon the territorial government. I then held and still hold such hostility to be treason against the federal government. What constitutes hostility in this penal sense I also expounded with careful avoidance of adding a word beyond established doctrine. In my opinion the jury that dealt with these questions was not inferior to any of its successors in patriotism, fair- ness, or intelligence. That, in the madness of partisan strife, under the provocations of unprincipled leaders, when the laws of the territory were denounced as ' bogus,' their authority defied, and an opposing legisla- ture, without semblance of authority, set up, when in- surgent military forces were organizing, equipping, drilling -that, I say in such untoward circumstances, the judiciary should have felt called upon to instruct the grand jury upon the subject of treason, that the grand jury should have made presentments, and the district attorney preferred indictments, can hardly be a cause for wonder."
On the list of traitors were Robinson, Reeder, Lane, and several other men prominent in free- state circles. A companion indictment for " usur- pation of office " was also issued against Robinson.
In the reorganized campaign the first attack fell
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upon Reeder, who was summoned May 6th before the grand jury of Douglas County, while in at- tendance upon the investigating committee at Te- cumseh. He declined to obey the subpæna on the ground that it was of more importance that he should attend the sessions of the committee than of the grand jury. Thursday, May 8th, the com- mittee returned to Lawrence. There Deputy Mar- shal Fain appeared with an attachment against Reeder for " contempt of court." Reeder refused to be captured, and told the marshal that if he touched him it would be at his peril - a show of spirit that pleased the spectators, who came crowd- ing into the room. But the situation soon grew intolerable, and there was safety only in flight. Reeder succeeded in reaching Kansas City, where he lay concealed some days at the American House, a hotel kept by the Eldridge brothers. The well- known free - state character of the hotel gave it about town a bad name, which was now blackened especially by rumors that abolitionists were skulk- ing there - rumors that subjected it to constant mob - surveillance. On one occasion, suspicious border-ruffians resorted to a formal search of the premises, and it was only by the cleverest in- genuity and presence of mind on the part of the household that they failed to unearth the fugitive. While concealed in the hotel, Reeder concluded that the time had fully come to make his will, into which he incorporated a brief but vigorous de-
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scription of the men who were frothing about his hiding - place, "I, Andrew H. Reeder : ... in danger of being murdered by a set of wild ruf- fians and outlaws, who are outside of all restraints of order, decency, and all social obligations, and who are below the savage in all the virtues of civilization . .. in view of my death, which may happen to-day or to-morrow, make this last will and testament."
Reeder escaped in disguise. Donning a suit of blue jean, with a battered straw hat on his head, a clay pipe in his mouth, and an axe in his hand - presenting the appearance of a seedy journey- man wood-chopper - he walked out of the hotel undetected, was rowed down the Missouri to an out-of-the-way landing, where a friendly river captain, who was in the secret, stopped for him. "Get aboard, you old scallawag," shouted the captain with simulated gruffness as the steamer touched the landing. "I won't wait two minutes for you ! "
The Lecompton authorities intended to act with no less vigor in Robinson's case. The gen- eral plan of operations came to his ears through some defection among the grand jury. What course ought to be pursued in the crisis was the subject of anxious discussion. An all night con- sultation took place in Topeka, at which John Sherman, W. A. Howard, Charles Robinson, and W. Y. Roberts, together with Mrs. Sherman and
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Mrs. Robinson, were present, to settle upon a line of policy. Should the territorial laws, which denounced penalties of imprisonment against the utterance of anti-slavery sentiments, be enforced, a wholesale locking up of free-state men would follow. The conclusions reached at the conference had a belligerent look. For the first and last time, representatives of the state government se- riously entertained purposes of resisting the ter- ritorial authorities. The plans as outlined con- templated further appeals to the North in hope of stirring it to active measures of sympathy, urged free-state men, obnoxious to the authorities, to avoid arrest as far as possible, and recommended the calling of an extra session of the state legis- lature for the purpose of putting the militia on a war-footing, in order to be prepared for emergen- cies. A halt must be called somewhere. If pro- slavery men were determined to force a collision, no better spot offered for a hostile stand than the state government. It was agreed that Gov- ernor Robinson should proceed eastward without delay to avoid the grand jury, as that body had as yet taken no action in his case ; that he should confer with anti-slavery friends, and put the testi- mony thus far taken before the investigating com- mittee beyond the reach of pro-slavery men, who would have been glad to get possession of it.
The plan miscarried. Governor Robinson got no farther eastward than Lexington, Missouri,
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where he was seized and detained. Mrs. Rob- inson, who was allowed to proceed, delivered the papers of the congressional committee to Governor Chase, of Ohio, and prosecuted the political func- tions of the embassy by visiting New England and by attending the republican state convention of Illinois.
The arrest at Lexington was entirely arbitrary. Robinson remained there under surveillance nearly a week before the necessary legal papers could be obtained from Kansas. When they arrived he was handed over to Federal Colonel Preston, who set out with him for Lecompton. The route lay through Lawrence. "If the people of Lawrence," said Preston, "attempt a rescue, of which I hear rumors, the escort will shoot you on the spot." This communication was not kindly received. " Well," the Colonel replied, "such are my or- ders." Governor Shannon, apprehending trouble, stopped the party at Franklin, and ordered it back to Kansas City. From that point the party pro- ceeded up the river to Leavenworth, which was reached Saturday, May 24th. The prisoner expe- rienced no special ill-usage in Leavenworth until Monday, the 26th, when there was a tremendous ferment. During the day newspaper extras ar- rived containing reports of free-state outrages on the Pottawatomie - reports that pro-slavery set- tlers in that region had been dragged from their cabins at dead of night and butchered. The news
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quickly called together an excited, angry, desper- ate crowd. A proposition to retaliate by mobbing the free-state governor roused general and bois- terous enthusiasm. Thomas H. Gladstone, corre- spondent of the London "Times," and author of " Kansas ; or, Squatter Life and Border Warfare in the Far West," mingled among the rioters and caught some of their talk: "Let us get hold of him ; if we don't sarve him out powerful quick. The hangin' bone villain, he may say his prayers mighty smart now. I'll be dog-gauned if we don't string him up afore the day 's out. Hangin 's a nation sight too good for him, the mean cuss. He ought to have been shot through the head right away - that's how I'd sarve him." A Mis- sourian - an old California acquaintance whose life Robinson had saved years before by timely medical service in a cholera panic - called toward evening. He seemed very much affected, and did not speak for some minutes. "You once did me a good turn," he finally managed to say, "and I've been trying to repay it all day. The boys have decided to kill you. I've done everything in my power to quiet them, but it's no use. I
thought I'd come and tell you about it." Only by the greatest exertion did the authorities suc- ceed in defeating the plans of the lynchers. The chief justice of the territory, whose discourse on treason before a grand jury initiated the whole movement, a major-general of militia, and a
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United States marshal stood guard over the pris- oner during the night and saw him on the way to Lecompton early in the morning before the town was astir.
The grand jury of Douglas County wrought great havoc among free - state leaders - Reeder fleeing in the disguise of a wood-chopper, Rob- inson a prisoner, Lane out of the territory, and other men, to whom the public confidence had been given, soon to be successfully hunted down. But this triumphant grand jury had not yet run its course. It found bills of indictment against two newspapers of Lawrence - the " Herald of Freedom " and the " Kansas Free State "- whose inflammatory and seditious language overpassed the limits of sufferance, and against the principal hotel of that town, which some extraordinary ob- liquity of vision transformed into a military for- tress, " regularly parapeted and port-holed for the use of cannon and small arms."
Well aware that the business in hand could not be accomplished unless aided by a military force, Marshal Donaldson issued a proclamation calling upon law-abiding citizens to rally at Lecompton for his assistance. It was time to cease dawdling. Lawrence, that " foul blot on the soil of Kansas," must be humiliated ; her newspaper press, wag- ging its tongue most vilely, silenced ; her battle- mented stone hotel, headquarters of abolitionism and property of the infamous Emigrant Aid Com-
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pany, demolished, and any skulking and uncaged remnant of traitors that were harbored in the town seized or scared out of the territory. Marshal Donaldson's proclamation, circulated for the most part in three or four pro-slavery towns of the ter- ritory, and in the border counties across the river, precipitated a large armed multitude toward the rendezvous at Lecompton - wild, hectic, mischief- meaning gangs, men cultivating the proprieties more or less in Missouri, but relapsing into a state of semi-barbarism when they touched the soil of Kansas. Governor Shannon was not at ease over the matter. "Had the marshal called on me for a posse," he wrote President Pierce, "I should have felt bound to furnish him one composed en- tirely of United States troops." President Pierce also was in a disquieted frame of mind. "My knowledge of facts is imperfect," he wrote Shan- non May 23d, "but with the force of Colonel Sumner at hand I perceive no occasion for the posse, armed or unarmed, which the marshal is said to have assembled at Lecompton."
Lawrence took apprehensive note of the hostile preparations and resorted, as during earlier trou- bles, to a committee of safety. Great confusion prevailed. None of the old leaders were on the ground, and new ones had not yet won their spurs. After many conferences and discussions the com- mittee decided to temporize, to expostulate, to manuœvre - in a word, to do anything except
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fight. This unwarlike diplomacy, though not par- ticularly soul -inspiring, was doubtless politic. When Donaldson's proclamation reached Law- rence, the citizens held a public meeting and pro- nounced the charges of insubordination and dis- loyalty contained in it unqualifiedly false. They sent messages, expostulations, appeals to Lecomp- ton in swift, nervous succession. Nothing of overture and concession did they leave untried. " We only await an opportunity," pleaded these unappreciated and despondent patriots, "to test our fidelity to the laws of the country, the Con- stitution, and the Union." Deprecatory and ex- culpating talk fell unheeded. No humilities of concession could divert the invaders from their prey.
Discomforts and perils thickened. May 19th a detachment of the marshal's posse shot a young man - mainly for the sensation and satisfaction of killing an abolitionist. Three adventurous fel- lows, presumably intoxicated, on hearing the news, snatched their weapons, dashed out of Lawrence to hunt the scoundrels, and began a fusillade upon the first travelers they encountered without any nice preliminary investigations. The expedition turned out unfortunately for the assailants. An- other abolitionist was converted into " wolf-meat."
Tuesday, May 20th, was a day of quiet. Little of the stir and confusion that naturally belong to military operations appeared. Citizens of Law-
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rence began to take heart, and to conjecture that the peril might have been exaggerated. But Wednesday morning they were undeceived. At an early hour a troop of horsemen quietly took possession of the bluffs west of town. Reinforce- ments gradually swelled the numbers during the morning until they reached several hundreds. It was a representative gathering - including the principal pro-slavery leaders, with Atchison at their head, the recent recruits from South Caro- lina and other states, the usual delegations of Missourians, and a sprinkling of actual residents in the territory.
The town lay in Sabbatic repose at the foot of the bluff. When it was definitely settled that there should be no resistance, most of the arms- bearing population whisked away like sea-birds blown landward by a tempest. The committee of safety instructed citizens who remained in town to ignore with lofty unconcern the whole noxious brood of marshals, sheriffs, and posses, and to go about their affairs as usual. Fearing that the un- natural quietude might hide some ambush, Atchi- son dispatched runners from the bluff to recon- noitre. They reported that the cowardly Yankees would not fight - a disposition that radically sim- plified the business of writ-service.
At eleven o'clock Deputy Marshal Fain, attended by an escort of six coatless men with revolvers belted about them, walked down into the village
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and arrested three men whose names were on the treason-list. Never were fewer obstacles thrown in the path of an officer. The alleged traitors, if they did not actually present themselves for ar- rest, conformed to the meekest and most inoffen- sive models of behavior. What is more, the com- mittee of safety handed the deputy marshal a note addressed to Donaldson, in which they vir- tually abandoned everything for which free-state men contended, and whipped over upon out and out law and order ground. But this last and un- reserved concession availed as little as those which preceded it.
After Deputy Marshal Fain's peaceable and easy success in making arrests, pro-slavery leaders - Atchison, Jones, Donaldson, General Richard- son, of the territorial militia, Colonel Titus, of Florida, Major Jackson, of Georgia, and others - ventured from the bluffs and rode about town on a tour of observation. S. W. Eldridge, proprietor of the hotel, so ill-reputed in pro-slavery quarters, politely asked the strolling gentry to dine, and they cheerfully accepted the invitation. But even a good dinner, and that without charge, carried no more influence as a town-saver than the surren- dering protocols.
The afternoon presented a more exciting scene. With the successful bagging of traitors, the primal and technical duties of the escort were concluded. But the nuisances were not yet abated. Marshal
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Donaldson and his advisers, though some of them belonged to the legal fraternity, reposed an aston- ishing confidence in the virtues and prerogatives of the famous grand jury of Douglas County. Scorning such intermediate steps as citations, hearings, opportunities for explanation or defense, and the like, they wrecked a hotel and threw two printing-presses into the river, upon the authority of a bare grand jury presentation. " That pre- sentment," said Judge Lecompte in a letter, Au- gust 1st, 1856, to Hon. J. A. Stewart, of Mary- land, "still lies in court. No time for action on it existed - none has been had - no order passed - nothing done, and nothing ever dreamed of being done, because nothing could rightly be done but upon the finding of a petit jury."
But let the posse give attention. A crier is riding about among the men shouting - "I am authorized to say that the marshal has no fur- ther use for you ; thanks you for the manner in which you have discharged your duties ; asks you to make out a statement of the number of days of service with affidavit and you shall be paid. Now, gentlemen, I summons you as the posse of Sheriff Jones. He is a law and order man, and acts un- der the same authority as the marshal."
Jones, scarcely recovered from his wound, was received with applause. The situation pleased him well, much better than it did Atchison, who thundered indeed, during the months of prepara-
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tion, against the Yankees with full throated ora- tory - outdone in verbal savageness only by the junior editor of the " Squatter Sovereign," a mod- ern Herod, who swore that he was prepared "to kill a baby if he knew it would grow up an ab- olitionist." But now, in the presence of opportu- nities for transmuting words into deeds, Atchison urged moderation. " I made several speeches, at least half a dozen," he said, in an account of the affair October, 1884, "riding horseback, to the dif- ferent companies. I spoke in the interest of peace - exerting myself to check, not to incite, outrage. It was not my wish that the hotel should be de- stroyed. I urged Jones to spare it. I told him that it would satisfy the ends of justice if he should throw a cannon-ball through it and there let the matter rest. But Jones was bent on mis- chief, and I could do nothing with him." The " Squatter Sovereign " of June 24th, 1856, de- nounces current free - state versions of Atchi- son's talk as false, and gives what it alleges to be a trustworthy text. " He exhorted the men above everything to remember that they were marching to enforce, not to violate, laws; to sup- press, and not to spread, outrage and violence." Nor was Atchison alone in deprecating excesses. On the day after the destruction of the town, nine citizens of Lawrence met in Lane's cabin and drew up a memorial to President Pierce, denounc- ing the territorial officials as a set of men who
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