USA > Kansas > Douglas County > Lawrence > The Kansas memorial, a report of the Old Settlers' meeting held at Bismarck grove, Kansas, Sept. 15th and 16th, 1879 > Part 19
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I have endeavored to put a few pages of words together in a form that may assist to preserve a few contained facts in the arch- ives of the Historical Society of the State of Kansas ; the gist of the repeal of the eighth section of the Compromise Act; our early struggles for liberty, and the picture emblematic of its distressed condition, and the bright phenomenon in the East emblematic of the condition of humanity when daggers, etc., shall be made into pruning hooks and other useful implements and peace shall reign.
PROLOGUE.
I.
'Tis not intended by this to enact, That slavery shall, or shall not be a fact In this virgin land. Let settlers agree By voting ; thus make it slave soil or free.
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
II.
Thus Congress, this question opened anew ; As a consequence this together drew Contending legions who burst the bubble, While Lincoln settled this brainy men's trouble.
I1I.
Men from the States ; men with pro-slavery aims, And some from the border, for sham, took claims, But they did not wait for the people to vote Ere they brought slaves with each up-river boat.
IV.
The thirtieth of March was a day of some note ; We went to Tecumseh intending to vote ; But we-the crowd of armed ruffians noting- Declined to collide ; none of us voting.
V.
One stranger showed the election a sham, In Stinson's door with a hand on each jamb ; Armed with revolvers, a dagger in each Bootleg, and shot-gun in easy reach.
VI.
Many were like him armed in a ravine, Around and in the house; and there was seen Old man Gilpatrick, kicked and driven away, He would not "vote right on the goose " that day.
VII.
At all the polls 'twas known this hellish game Was played with open and unblushing shame; And it has since been played with increased rigors, By vicious Southern whites to bulldose niggers.
VIII.
Unused were free state men to such turmoil, As new to them as the unbroken soil; Which seemed as new as if untouched by man, Since it was formed by the Almighty's plan.
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
MEETING OF THE PIONEERS FOR CONSULTATION-THEIR DELIBER- ATIONS AND PROTEST.
IX.
'Tis meet that we do now consult, Regarding those armed wights, Who for kind words give us insult, Pretend we have no rights, Prowl 'round in squads and frighten wives, Have banners, ('bate your breath, For there we see for threatened lives Displayed,) "Slavery or Death."
X.
We treat all comers brotherly, And give to all good cheer, But those armed villains swear the free Yanks shall not settle here. They have their secret words and signs, Are organized they say, Sworn to enforce their base designs, To kill or drive away.
XI.
We had our homes ere we came here, Could there have lived in peace, But distant murmurs filled the ear, Nor would forebodings cease. A holy cause called loud and well, Here we were by it led, In order slavery to repel, Nor let it further spread.
XII.
We have a mission to perform, We Kansas pioneers, `A conflict irrepressible Excites the nation's fears. Where is our boasted freedom now ? Her Goddess cannot stand When might makes right that makes her bow To powers that rule the land.
XIII.
Might ruling right hath now its hour, And strong and proudly stands,
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High and imperious with all power That patronage commands. Might hath repealed a compromise, Made by the Southern will, And threatens now to call her roll Of slaves at Bunker Hill.
XIV.
Might forces freemen to catch slaves, Who flee toward the north star, If so-called law can make them knaves. And do what they abhor ; But time shall put in power the right, The slave shall yet be free, And with his master legislate In Congress equally.
XV.
We write to friends, they scarce believe The statements written there, Of pro-slave treatment we receive, Of insults we must bear ; Of 'lection frauds in which we're wronged, And legislators made, At polls by border ruffians thronged With arms and foreign aid.
XVI.
Shall we with no official power, With those who have, contend ? And shall we like the menials cower, And with officials blend ? They say that we should own our kind, Domestic "helps" should own, That lords and ladies then would find All their worst troubles flown.
XVII.
Thus might persuades us, but we scorn The bribe. Shall Freedom's Knights Forget that they are freemen born T' establish human rights ? We have sped here from every State, Few coming from the South, We mean by very numbers' weight To close the tyrant's mouth,
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
XVIII. .
And sheathe the dagger in bis hand; The Goddess shall arise, Progress in time will then be grand, Behold the brilliant skies ! Abundant from the central source, The rays of light extend With bows, a token that the course Of progress shall not end.
XIX.
Our government in any view, We will forever prize ; But laws made by the ruffian crew, We will not recognize. We see a contest here begun By men who freedom hate, A "wave "* must take to Washington, The saviors of the State.
RESTORATION OF THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY.
XX.
Now we congratulate our friends On this benign occasion, When peaceful years have made amends For the late war's abrasion ; On being e'er victorious, In what we tried to do, From making Kansas glorious, To helping freedom through.
XXI.
But few who came here free state men, E'er thought of interfering, With slavery in the States where then It had a firm appearing. By gross injustice on the part Of the administration, Radical thoughts were given such start As ere long ruled the nation.
*" Ride into power on the wave of prosperity."-SAM'L J. TILDEN. As reported in the Chicago Times, of August 14, 1879.
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
XXII.
Let us believe that higher powers, Than those of earth control, This beautiful, bad world of ours, With each immortal soul ; And yet each is accountable For all his earthly acts, That "Great Book" memory will tell, In time all weighty facts.
1
XXIII.
Dear pioneers, or saint, or sage, Honor to you is due, Of history, the brightest page Was written here by you ; For here you won 'gainst patronage, A victory sublime, An era in Columbia's age, To be revered through time.
XXIV.
Proclaim it! The great civil fight Was erst with us rehearsed, Kansas succeeded for the right, Else all had been reversed; Delayed the time when wars shall cease, By universal act Of world's commissioners, and peace A bright millennial fact.
ADDRESS OF THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY TO HER WHILOM ENEMIES.
XXV.
Soon as the Goddess took her place, She mercifully said, " Go now misguided men who this ' Unpleasantness ' have led And till your devastated soil, Your bondmen I make free ; 'Tis meet that you now learn to toil, Enjoy sweet liberty.
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XXVI.
"Never forget that you had long Been challenging a fight ; You passed pretended laws, the wrong To nullify the right. You fostered feelings sectional, By men in Congress led, And answered Sumner's telling speech By stealthy blows on head.
XXVII.
"You're freed I now may to you state From many things you feared, You now may Christians tolerate Whose conscience is not seared ; You now the young may educate En masse in common schools,
For ignorance is not a great Need there where freedom rules.
XXVIII.
"Books for your Sunday-schools ; to mend, Need not be visaed ; pruned Of every word that might offend Ears sensitively turned ; Incendiary papers may Be mailed in the P. O., An Abolitionist his way Sans peur of hemp may go.
XXIX.
"Now you may all in peace rejoice, And be good friends again, But say no more one of your boys Equals three northern men. No doubt the past has been quite hard, The moral is-do right, Like chicken cocks in same yard, The whipped will no more fight.
XXX.
" Ask not again for compromise, The time for that has passed,
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
Each for himself must realize A play for him is cast, In which he acts for others' good As well as for his own, Let-and I trust I'm understood- No selfishness be shown.
XXXI.
" When 'tis habitual to act For all, and none afraid Of any who may virtue lack, But proffer them their aid To mount progression's ladder, see, How beautiful the sight- Communities in harmony Have duties ever light.
XXXI1.
"Whether in this millennium Treasure for all appears, In common as has been foretold By those who are called seers, Is not now plainly evident To unassisted sight, But honest men who legislate For all will do it right."
THE GODDESS OF LIBERTY TO THE KANSAS PIONEERS.
XXXIII.
My friends your mission does not end With these few years of care -- A life eternal you shall spend, With good or bad somewhere ; And idle you'd not wish to be, Nor would you sing for aye, But still assist and teachers be To darklings who do pray To be assisted to ascend To higher spheres of light, Where roses bloom and flowers lend Their charms to please the sight ; Where many mansions are prepared, By the Great Father given, Where those who lived and loved on earth May love and live in Heaven.
L
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
ADDRESS BY MAJ. J. B. ABBOTT.
The Chairman introduced Maj. J. B. Abbott, who spoke as follows :
Friends and Comrades :
This is indeed a glorious occasion, a happy gathering of old, true and tried friends. Such a meeting as we have witnessed to-day, occurs only in the life-time of the few. Such friendships as we witness here, are only generated among true men and women, and under severe trials and dangers. And such friendship is more than full remuneration for all the suffering that produced it.
The most of the early settlers came here to better their condi- tion, make homes for themselves and educate their children in the art of agriculture ; but the defenders of the "peculiar institution " had decided that Kansas must, at all hazard and at whatever cost, become a slave State, and their first plan was to drive out of the Territory every shade of anti-slavery men, from the Garrisonian Abolitionist to the most doubtful free state Democrat, and thus the principle of self or home defense produced an alliance that was not weakened during the struggle that followed. If the left wing of this alliance could not always endorse the universal equality sentiments of the right, yet they hated the slavery propagandist far more intensely, which answered all purposes for the work that had to be done. We were not driven out, and at last Kansas was ad- mitted into the Union a free State.
How proud were its citizens of the new Commonwealth, and well were they satisfied with the results of their labor and hard- ships, and thus had they been doubly paid. But the demon of slavery had been sowing broader than he had dreamed, in his en- deavor to subjugate and drive out the people of Kansas. For the wind he had scattered over the then small settlements of the Ter- ritory, he was soon compelled to reap a full-grown whirlwind in nearly half of the States of the Union, and now, thank God, and all the lovers of justice and equal rights, who have helped in its cause, we are living, not only in a free State, but in a constellation of free States, the wonder and hope of the world.
Kansas, although in her 'teens, has her school-houses and schools, which rank with any State; railroad facilities unequaled by States twice its age, a proud reputation for her agricultural products, is almost free from debt, with a million of inhabitants with broad and liberal views, full of honest enterprise, and watchful to secure every possible good to the State of their adoption and crea- tion. In view of all these results, how insignificant appear the " troubles of Kansas." We have been paid an hundred fold for all we have been called on to endure, and millions are on the road to the enjoyment of that freedom, which they might have never known, had even the few scattered settlements of Kansas been less true to the principles of human rights.
I am reminded, almost daily, and especially as I converse
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
with the friends here, that our numbers are thinning out, and it is not unlikely, if the facts were known, we should find that the majority of our old comrades have passed over to the spirit-world beyond, and to me it is a pleasing thought, that while they are in- visible to us, yet they may be gathered here, mingling with their friends, and enjoying with us this reunion and festal scene, rejoic- ing over the victories of right and justice and a world's progress. And now in closing, let me say, that e'er another decade shall have rolled around, we will have passed on to the glorious meeting and and joyous greetings of our old comrades, and entered upon the results of our labors. This let us believe, and in this let us be satisfied.
ADDRESS BY COL. DANIEL H. HORNE.
THE CHAIRMAN: - In the darkest hour of our trouble, Kansas had no truer and braver friends than were found in Topeka. I take pleasure now, in calling upon one of the truest and bravest to say a few words to you.
Col. Horne said :
Ladies and Gentlemen :
This occasion reminds me of a trip I made to Lawrence in 1855, when the people here were glad to see me; in the time of the Wakarusa war. I marched from Topeka with a hundred men. We came with music-fife and drum-and, with some drilling on the way down, we were enabled to present quite a soldierly appear- ance. The Lawrence people at first took us for border ruffians, and they began to get out of our way; but when we marched in front of the Eldridge House, which was Robinson's headquarters, and I halted the men and presented arms, they soon saw who we were, and were very glad to see us, and gave us three cheers.
Allusion has been made to the services of different men in the early Kansas times. I regard Gen. James H. Lane as one of the men who did most for Kansas. No one did more than he to inspire the men and get them into action when any emergency arose. He had a wonderful power over men; and that power was exerted for the good of Kansas and of the country in a great many instances. His style of speech in haranguing the people was very peculiar and very effective. I have now in mind an instance which occurred during the war : Lane had three regiments of infantry to form. A recruiting meeting was held at Topeka, at the Con- gregational church, and it was packed full to hear Lane. Many persons were present who had traveled with Lane all over the Ter- ritory during the troubles. He told them it was their duty to enlist ; that they would be ashamed of the name they bore if they allowed this war to pass over without their having a hand in it. They did not start enlisting as quickly and as briskly as Lane thought they ought to, and he began to feel disappointed. But Charley Lenhart, who was present, spoke out, and made a remark
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
which explained the difficulty. Says he : "Lane, we don't want to have anything to do with infantry. We have always been in the saddle." Lane drew himself up and pointing his fore-finger in his peculiar manner, he exclaimed : " I was just coming to that point. I was just going to say, that the Government will furnish saddles, and the Government will furnish bridles, and Missouri, she has plenty of horses, and we can all ride." That removed the diffi- culty. The boys began to put down their names, and recruiting went on fast enough.
Now, as one who went through all the Kansas troubles, I want to say, and I want to give it in as my testimony, that I consider there were two men to whom Kansas owes more, and to whom is due more credit than to any two others: These were Charles Rob- inson and James H. Lane. And I do not want them separated. Their names should both go down together as the two men whom the people should most honor for services done for Kansas in the early times.
Some claim that Lane was opposed to Government troops, at the time the pro-slavery government employed them against Kan- sas; that he was disposed to have the boys fight the Government troops. That is not true. Lane always respected the Government troops. Whenever we came in sight of the troops he always had us present arms; and the next thing, you would see him begging tobacco all along the line for our boys. I know there was not a disloyal hair in Lane's head, even when loyalty to the Govern- ment was almost a crime against Kansas.
I want to speak a word about the old gun whose voice we have been hearing on this occasion. I know there are a good many bigger guns than that, now-a-days. But in 1856 it was a very big gun. It was a very big gun when we drove the Missourians out of Atchison with it. It was a big gun when it went, under Captain Bickerton, down on the border, early in the war. We tried to burst this gun when Robinson was elected Governor. We tried to burst it when Lane was elected to the Senate, and when Kansas was admitted into the Union. We have been trying to burst it ever since, on all occasions in which the interests or glory of Kansas have been involved. And here the gun is, to-day, to speak its loudest tones in this great celebration.
Adjourned to 7 p. m.
TUESDAY EVENING.
Governor Robinson being absent, Col. S. N. Wood, one of the Vice-Presidents, presided.
ADDRESS BY HON. JOHN SPEER.
The chairman introduced Hon. John Speer, who spoke as follows :
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
Unlike several of those who have preceded me I do not appear reluctantly before you, but I may say that I am gratified at an opportunity to address this vast audience, embracing the gallant pioneers of Kansas-the men and women who gave freedom to this grand Commonwealth. Aside from the gratification of looking into your faces, and the pride of being thought worthy to address you, there have been many things said from this stand which make me anxious, for the truth of history and justice to the brave pioneers, to be able to reply and to give my views on a struggle in which I trust I may say, without egotism, I was more than a mere spectator, and frequently an active participator.
I desire to refer especially to the attempt to give credit to the early official authorities of Kansas for saving the Territory and the State to freedom. I would not detract one iota from the credit due them for the discharge of their duties; but had their policy been pursued, not only would Kansas been given to slavery, but the institution would have been extended westward into New Mexico, Arizona, and even southward into provinces which the slavery propaganda contemplated acquiring from Mexico.
As Col. Forney has told you, he and others secured the appointment of Gov. Reeder as the first Executive of Kansas ; but this was long years before he and his compeers threw their weight in behalf of the cause of free Kansas, and Gov. Reeder, although a good man, an able lawyer and a statesman, was a Dem- ocrat, in unison with the Administration of Franklin Pierce, by whom he was appointed. He believed in what the slavery propa- ganda called the guaranties of the constitution. He believed that the slaveholder had a right to bring his "property " to Kansas, while the decided " Abolitionist "-a term applied to all men who did not believe that slavery was the "corner stone of the confed- eration "-held that freedom was national and slavery limited to ter- ritory in which it was specially established by local statutory land. A few of the John Brown stamp of men believed that slavery was such a violation of the laws of God that it ought to be resisted by every conceivable means, without regard to human enactments ; but the large portion of the original free state men were opposed to slavery as a matter of political policy. I would not say that Gov. Reeder was not, in his private opinions, of this class. But he came here to carry out the policy of the organic act, as his oath required him to do. I do not know that even his official associates knew his private views upon slavery. Surely he never expressed enmity to the institution until after the school of severe experience taught him that there was no middle ground for him on that question -- that he must either justify the invasion of the country and fraudu- lent voting and fraudulent returns, and every possible outrage, even to the murder and expulsion from the Territory of every free state man, or take refuge among the free state men for protection, in asserting the commonest rights of humanity. The
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
turning point came in the returns of the election of the 30th of March, 1855-the first election of members of the Legislature. At least 1,000 men came to Lawrence from Missouri to vote, but not requiring all of them, about 300 were detailed to go to Clinton, and the elections in both places were controlled by Missouri mobs. At other places elections were carried by smaller numbers in the same way. It see.ns incredible in this age that men should have come from other States armed with revolvers, knives, shot guns, rifles and artillery, with tents and camp equipage, encamping the night before and striking their tents the morning after election, carrying the returns of their own fraudulent election with them. But such is the fact. They surrounded the ballot box, drove the judges appointed by the Governor from the polls, and declared their own judges elected. This was followed by affidavits of the facts sent to the Governor, and on the day appointed for canvass- ing the returns, a body of armed free state men surrounded the Governor, and a heavy saber lay concealed under the damask cloth on the Governor's table, for his protection in the decision of the result. The annunciation had boldly been made that the setting aside of these returns would cost him his life, and nothing but the knowledge of intended resistance saved him. From that day onward his official life was one of insult and abuse. Thus le was almost literally driven into the free state ranks. His official head was cut off soon after by the Administration, for the simple discharge of a sworn duty. He soon became a trusted and honored leader of the free state party; but for this alleged be- trayal of the South, his life was sought, he was hunted "from pillar to post," and finally compelled to escape from the Territory in disguise as a deck hand on a steamboat. It was in this school of the persecuted free state men that he learned new lessons on freedom never taught by Democrats since the days of Jefferson.
Gov. Shannon followed Reeder, and his history is known, but even his head went to the block, because he was unable to inflict slavery upon Kansas. Personally there were few better men, but he was in no sense a promoter of freedom in Kansas.
Gov. Geary was a "National Democrat," and was selected by President Pierce, not to promote freedom in Kansas, but because he had been an officer in the Mexican war, and was a man of great executive ability, who was believed to be capable of putting down the "rebellion in Kansas," as the free state organization against slavery and usurpation was called by the pro-slavery in- vaders and the Democratic leaders. He secured control of United States troops, issued a proclamation disarming all organized bards, and by the government troops arrested and placed in the Lecomp- ton prison, 10: free state men who had just captured a pro- slavery fortification at Hickory Point. With all this ~ffort at putting down the free state men, who were protecting their homes, he was insulted and spit upon-I do not mean figuratively snit upon, but his face absolutely spitten in-because he would not commis-
12
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THE KANSAS MEMORIAL.
sion a drunken pro-slavery murderer to the office of sheriff; and when a large body of armed free state citizens assembled at Lecompton to denounce this outrage upon a Governor who differed from them, the meeting was assailed, shot into, and the assailant who had spitten upon the Governor shot down in his tracks. On this, pro-slavery assassins stalked abroad in the land. The life of the Governor was in constant jeopardy. And here arose the anomaly -unparalleled in the history of the world-of a ruler compelled to arm his prisoners, but recently captured, for his personal pro- tection against the partisans whom he had been sent to sustain ! He was compelled to flee the country, and soon after resigned or was removed.
Then Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, a life-long supporter of slavery-the former senator of Mississippi-was appointed, with Secretary Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, for Secretary of the Territory. If Reeder and Shannon and Geary and their associates had been failures in the pro-slavery mission-field in the attempts of the Administration to establish slavery in Kansas, it was expected that two such missionaries of slavery as Walker and Stanton would cover themselves with glory in the solution of the imbroglio of Kansas. Stanton came first, and he "bearded the lion in his den," by making his maiden demonstration in Lawrence, where, in a public speech, he told the people he had come to " enforce the laws, and that they must obey." This declaration met a universal response. "Never." "Then," said he, "it is war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt." Speakers arose who boldly defied him to enforce the " bogus laws," and if I recollect right, Gov. Robinson made a very firm speech in defense of the rights of the people and in defiance of the laws. And Stanton, the pro-slavery apostle from Tennessee, took his first lesson from the men who defied "the laws." Recollect, these laws made it a penitentiary offense for any man to deny that slavery legally exist- ed in Kansas, and death to feed a runaway slave. On the day that that law took effect, as editor of the Kansas Tribune, I pub- lished a bold, defiant article against the legal existence of slavery. No man could vote without swearing to support these iniquitous laws.
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