USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. IV > Part 22
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THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
south along the Missouri line 25 miles ; thence west 120 miles ; thenee north to a point from which a line drawn due cast would intersect the southern boundary of the Kansas Indian reservation ; thenee east on this line to the southeast corner of the Kansas reservation ; thence north along the eastern boundary of said reservation to the Kansas river, thence along the south bank of the river to a point due west of the starting place, and thence in a direct line to the place of beginning.
On the 17th of May the Iowas ceded their several small tracts in the northeastern part of the state, and received a reservation between Nohart's creek and the Nemaha river. The next day the Sacs and Foxes ceded their lands in Kansas and accepted a reserve in Nebraska. At the same time the Kickapoo chiefs ceded the lands of that tribe, acquired by the treaty of May 24, 1832, except 150,000 acres at the west end of the reservation. The lands of the Kaskaskias, Peorias, and Piankeshaws, were ceded on the 30th of May, 1854, and those of the Miamis, on the 5th of June.
At the beginning of the year 1853 there were about fourteen hundred white people in Kansas. They were gathered about the military and trading posts, or the missions, and were either soldiers, traders, or missionaries. A few white families were located at Elm and at Council Grove; a settlement had been started at Uniontown in 1852; and Delaware post office, on the Kansas river, about ten miles above the mouth, had a few white settlers. There were also a few white men living on the Wyandot Indian reservation.
On July 28, 1853, a convention was held at Wyandotte to nomi- nate a delegate to congress. The friends of Thomas H. Benton supported Abelard Guthrie, while the followers of D. R. Atchison gave their support to Rev. Thomas Johnson, the founder of the Methodist mission. Guthrie was nominated, but on the 20th of September Atchison's friends assembled and nominated Johnson as an opposing candidate. The election was held at the Indian village of Kickapoo, and Johnson was elected by Indian votes. Upon the assembling of congress, he went to Washington, but was not admitted as a delegate, because the territory had not yet been organized .*
But the conditions were such that the organization of a sep- arate territory west of the Missouri could not be long delayed. The Indian titles were being extinguished, and many white people were looking with longing eyes at the fertile plains of Kansas.
"There is a report of an election of a delegate in 1852 by the few whites lving among the Wyandotto Indians, but it is not well authenticated.
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PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
As early as December 13, 1852, a bill had been itnroduced in the national house of representatives by Willard P. Hall, of Missouri. It provided for the organization of the Territory of Platte, which included the present states of Nebraska and Kansas. It was referred to the committee on territories, however, and the matter rested until February 2, 1853, when William A. Richardson, of Illinois, a member of the committee on territories, reported a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. This bill passed the house on the 10th of February, by a vote of 98 to 43, and was sent to the senate, where it was favorably reported by Stephen A. Douglas on the 17th. On the 3d of March the measure was tabled in the senate -- 23 to 17, and thus ended the second effort to establish a territory west of the Missouri.
No reference to the slavery question was made in either the Hall or the Richardson bill. The act of 1820, known as the Missouri Compromise, provided that all territory of Louisiana purchase lying north of 36 degrees 30 minutes should be organized-into free states. No one questioned the force or soundness of this provision, which had been the law of the land for more than thirty years; and had either of the bills mentioned become a law, Kansas would have been organized as a free territory, and admitted as a free state, without dispute.
The third essay, and, as it proved, the successful one, to organ- ize Kansas into a territory, was begun on the 4th of December, 1853, when Augustus C. Dodge offered a bill in the United States senate to organize the Territory of Nebraska. All the territory west of lowa and Missouri to the Rocky mountains was included within the boundaries proposed by Mr. Dodge. The bill was reported back to the senate, January 4, 1854, by Stephen A. Doug- las, with several important amendments. Before action was taken on the measure Senator Douglas reported a substitute (Jan- uary 23) providing for the organization of two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. This bill afterward became universally known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill.
When California had applied for admission into the Union in 1850, the people of that state had adopted and submitted to con- gress a constitution expressly prohibiting slavery. This re-opened the subject of slavery in congress and led to the passage of the "Omnibus Bill" proposed by Henry Clay. Following the lead of this measure, Douglas incorporated the following provision in the Kansas Nebraska measure:
"That the constitution, and all laws of the United States which are not locatty inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect
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TIIE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
within the said territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March sixth, eigliteen hundred and twenty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the Compromise Measure, is hereby declared inoperative and void ; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States; provided, that nothing herein contained shall be con- strued to revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of the sixth of March, eighteen hun- dred and twenty, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery."
An acrimonious debate followed the introduction of the bill. Amendments giving the people of the territory the power to pro- hibit slavery and to elect their own governor were offered by Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, but they were promptly voted down. The bill passed the senate about four o'clock in the morning of March 4, 1854, by a vote of 37 to 14, and was sent to the house where it was passed at midnight, May 22-157 ayes to 100 noes. While the bill was on its passage in the senate, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made a speech in which he said :
"Sir, the bill which you are about to pass is at once the worst and the best bill on which Congress ever acted. . It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory for slavery. It is the best bill on which Congress ever acted, for it annuls all past compromises with slavery, and makes future com- promises impossible. Thus it puts freedom and slavery face to face and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the result.
"Thus, sir, now standing at the very grave of freedom in Nebraska and Kansas, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection, by which freedom will be secured, not only to these Territories, but everywhere under the national goverment. Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you are about to commit ; joyfully I welcome all the promises of the future."
In the light of subsequent events these words seem prophetic. Had the Territory of Kansas been organized under the Hall or the Richardson bill, the great civil war, with all its dire conse- quences, might have been postponed for years. But the aggres-
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PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
siveness of the slave power forced the issue, and the world knows the result.
On May 30, 1854, President Pierce approved the Kansas- Nebraska bill, and the lands recently purchased from the various Indian tribes were thrown open to settlement. Regarding these treaties, Greeley, in his American conflict, says: "These simmil- taneous purchases of Indian lands by the government, though lit- tle was known of them elsewhere, were thoroughly understood and appreciated by the Missourians of the Western border, who had for some time been organizing 'Blue Lodges,' 'Social Bands,' 'Sons of the South' and other societies with intent to take posses- sion of Kansas in behalf of Slavery."
Doctor Stringfellow, in his testimony before the congressional investigating committee two years later, stated that the purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was to make Kansas a slave state, and that the president and those appointed to carry out its provisions so understood. Senator Douglas, the champion of the bill, denied that this was the object of the measure. He declared that the purpose of the bill was simply to take from congress the power to regulate the domestic affairs of the states, leaving all such ques- tions to the people themselves. However this may be, as soon as it was definitely known that the Kansas-Nebraska bill had become a law hundred of Missourians crossed the border into Kansas, selected claims, held squatter meetings, and returned to Missouri.
At one of these meetings they passed resolutions declaring that protection would be given to no abolitionist as a settler of the territory ; recognizing the institution of slavery as already existing in Kansas, and advising slave-holders to bring their property into the territory as soon as possible. Slavery was actually intro- duced by Rev. Thomas Johnson, the head of the Shawanese mis- sion. Johnson has been described as "vulgar, illiterate and coarse." When he took charge of the mission, it was declared that he was "not worth a blanket" but that he got rich off the Shawanese through the cesions of several thousand acres of land given to the mission.
But, while the pro-slavery advocates were thus at work, the free state men were not idle. April 26, 1854, the Massachusetts legislature passed an act incorporating the Massachusetts Emi- grant Aid Society, with a capital not exceeding five millions of dollars, the object of the society being to assist emigrants in set- tling up the West.
Emigram aid societies were organized in several others of the
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THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
Northern and Eastern states. Among them were the American Settlement Company, of New York City, with Theodore Dwight as secretary ; the New York Kansas League; the Vegetarian Set- tlement Company, etc. But the greatest of all, and the only one that endured to the end of the conflict, was the New England Emi- grant Aid Company, organized in June, with Amos A. Lawrence, J. M. F. Williams and Eli Thayer, trustees, and Dr. Thomas H. Webb, secretary. The active agents of the society, were in the order of appointment, Dr. Charles Robinson, S. C. Pomeroy, William B. Spooner, J. M. F. Williams, Eli Thayer, Dr. S. Cabot, Jr., R. P. Waters, Dr. LeBaron Russell, Charles J. Higginson and Edward Everett Ilale. This society advertised emigration at "wholesale prices," and one-half the saw mills in Kansas, located during the first years of settlement, were taken to the territory by its capital.
These societies naturally aroused the opposition of the pro- slavery element. When the first free state emigrants arrived in Kansas, the pro-slavery men of Westport, Mo., met, formed an association, and resolved: "That this association will, when- ever called upon by any of the citizens of Kansas Territory, hold itself in readiness together to assist in the removal of any and all emigrants who go there under the auspices of the Northern Emigrant Societies." The association, in the hope that a formid- able display of opposition might deter the free state men from trying to effect settlements in Kansas, also called upon the citizens of other counties along the border to organize similar associations and pass similar resolutions.
The proximity of Missouri, a slave state, gave the pro-slavery men an advantage which they were not slow to utilize. June 13, 1854, the Leavenworth Town Company was organized at Weston, Mo., with Major Macklin of the U. S. Army, Amos Rees and L. D. Bird, trustees. The Atchison Town Company was formed on the 27th of July, with Peter T. Abell, president ; J. H. String- fellow, secretary, and James N. Burnes, treasurer, though the first sale of lots did not take place until September.
Although the pro-slavery men were thus the first to locate town sites and pre-empt claims, they were not the first to establish a permanent settlement. The New England Aid Society sent Charles Robinson and Charles II. Branscomb to the territory to select a site for the first colony of eastern immigrants. They selected the place where the city of Lawrence now stands, and on the ia of August the first company of thirty arrived, and began
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PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
the first rude structures in the future city .* A second party of one hundred and fourteen came in September, among them being Doctor Robinson and S. C. Pomeroy .; By the close of the year free state settlements had been made at Manhattan, Grasshopper Falls and Topeka, the foundations of the last named being laid on the 5th of December by Col. C. K. Holliday, M. C. Dickey, F. W. Giles, and others.
Both side early established newspapers in the territory. On September 15, the first issue of the Leavenworth Herald, a pro- slavery paper, made its appearance. It was printed under a large elin tree, no building having yet been erected for its accommoda- tion. A month later, October 15, the Kansas Tribune, of Law- rence, a free-state paper, appeared. The first number of this paper was printed in Ohio, though the matter was prepared in Kansas by the editor, John Speer. October 21, the first number of the Herald of Freedom, another free-state paper, was pub- lished at Wakarusa, by G. W. Brown & Co. It was printed in Pennsylvania, but the second number was printed at Lawrence January 6, 1855. The first number announced the arrival, on the 6th of September, of Charles 11. Branscomb, with another company of more than a hundred persons.
While the free-state men were thus depending upon actual set- thers to determine the fate of Kansas, the pro-slavery settlements languished. The advocates of slavery relied upon enough votes coming over from Missouri to control the elections, when the time came to ask for admission as a state. Actual settlements were therefore not necessary to their purpose, and, though they had been prompt to secure some of the best town sites, their energy was of short duration. They preferred the intimidation of Abolitionists and the fraudulent control of elections to the work of developing the resources of the new territory. If Kansas could be admitted as a slave state, no matter what the means used to accomplish such an end, the resources could be developed by slave labor under the lash of the overseer.
Meantime the territorial government was taking form. In June commissions were issued to Andrew H. Reeder, of Pennsyl- vania, as governor ; Daniel Woodson, of Virginia, as secretary ;
*The settlement was at first called Wakarusa. October 6, the town was named Lawrence, in honor of Amos A. Lawrence, one of the prominent mem- bers of the And Sorletv.
i Mr. Robinson met the first party in St. Louis, and also conducted the second party from St Loula to Lawrence. He was the first local agout of the New Kungfuund Buthroat And Company and the first preskjent of the Lawrence lown Alto association.
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Samuel D. Lecompte, of Maryland, as chief justice ;* Saunders W. Johnston, of Ohio, and Rush Elmore, of Alabama as associate justices ; Israel B. Donalson of Illinois, as United States marshal, and Andrew J. Isacks, of Louisiana, as United States district attorney. On July 7, the oath of office was administered to Governor Reeder, at Washington, by Peter V. Daniel, one of the justices of the United States supreme court. He set out for Kansas from his Pennsylvania home about the ist of October, and on the 7th arrived at Leavenworth, where he established a temporary executive office.
*Madison Brown, of Maryland, was first appointed chief justice, but declined. Judge Lecompte of the same state was then appointed.
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THE BORDER WAR IN KANSAS.
CHAPTER II
The Border War
A NDREW HORATIO REEDER, the first territorial gov- ernor of Kansas, was born at Easton, Penn., July 12, 1807.
After an academic training at Lawrenceville, N. J., he studied law and was admitted to the bar. As a lawyer he was dis- tinguished for energy, integrity and intelligence. Although an active Democrat he was not a candidate for the position of gov- ernor of Kansas when appointed by President Pierce in 1854. In July, 1855, Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war, secured his re- moval on the grounds that he was engaged in land speculation, and was using his office to further the interests of some of his private schemes. At the election in October, 1855, he was the free-state candidate for delegate to congress, and although he received a majority of the votes was not seated. An arbitrary warrant for his arrest was issued in May, 1856, by the opposing faction, while he was with the congressional investigating committee; but he escaped in the disguise of a woodchopper and made his way to Alton, Ill. From there he returned to Pennsylvana. In 1856 he supported John C. Fremont for the presidency, and in 1860 was mentioned as a candidate for vice president on the Republican ticket. When the civil war broke out, he was appointed brigadier general by President Lincoln, but declined the honor. He died at Easton, Penn., July 5, 1864.
About ten days after his arrival at Leavenworth, Governor Reeder, accompanied by Judges Johnston and Elmore and Mar- shal Donalson, started upon a tour of examination through the territory. Among the places visited were Lawrence, Fort Riley and Council Grove, at all of which the governor and his party were cordichy received. They returned to Leavenworth, Novem-
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ber 7, and the next day Governor Reeder divided the territory into sixteen election districts. On the roth he issued a proclama- tion, calling an election for November 20, at which a delegate to congress was to be selected.
The pro-slavery men insisted upon an election of members to a territorial legislature, at the same time; but the governor called attention to the organic act, which provided for the taking of a census before an election of a legislature, and announced his determination to carry out the provisions of the law. This was the beginning of the rupture between the governor and the pro- slavery men, that ended in his removal the following summer. The pro-slavery candidate for delegate was John W. Whitfield, while the free-state men divided their strength between two can- didates, John A. Wakefield and R. P. Flenneken. Whitfield received 2,258 votes; Wakefield, 248, and Flenneken 305.
During the short campaign the policy of the pro-slavery forces was made plain. David R. Atchison, United States senator from Missouri, was the most out-spoken of all the pro-slavery advo- cates, and soon became the acknowledged leader of the movement. He was about the same age as Governor Reeder, having been born August 11, 1807, in Fayette county, Ky. After graduating from the Transylvania University and attending the Lexington law school, he settled in Clay county, Mo. He served sev- eral terms in the Missouri legislature, was judge of the Platte county circuit, and in 1844 was elected to the United States senate. In a speech in Platte county, Mo., in the carly part of November, 1854, lie said :
"The people of Kansas, in their first elections, will decided the question whether or not the slave-holder is to be excluded, and it depends upon a majority of the votes cast at the polls. Now, if a set of fanatics and demagogues a thousand miles off can afford to advance their money and exert every nerve to abolition- ize the Territory and exclude the slaveholder, when they have not the least personal interest, what is your duty? When you reside in one day's journey of the Territory, and when your peace, your quiet, and your property depend on your action, you can, without an exertion, send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your institutions. Should cach county in the state of Missouri only do its duty, the question will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-box. If we are defeated, then Missouri and the other Southern states will have shown themselves recreant to their interest, and will deserve their fate."
The border Missouriaus accepted the que given them by their
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chosen leader, and on election day hundreds of them were at the polls in Kansas to vote for Whitfield. Weapons were freely dis- played, abolitionists were threatened, but no one was hurt, the object being more to intimidate than to injure the free state men. A congressional investigating committee afterward reported that, of the 2,833 votes cast, more than 1,700 were illegal. But as General Whitfield received a plurality of the legal votes, he was allowed to retain his seat until the end of the term, which was March 4, 1855.
A census was ordered taken in January, 1855, and was com- pleted on the last day of February. It showed a population of 8,501, of whom 2,905 were voters. Based upon this enumeration, Governor Reeder divided the territory into eighteen districts, and on the 8th of March issued a proclamation ordering an election to be held on the 30th for members of the first territorial legislature.
The frauds perpetrated at the first election were repeated at this, but on a larger scale. At nearly all the election precincts armed men from Missouri took possession of the polls, removed . the election judges appointed by Governor Reeder, and conducted the election to suit themselves. About a thousand, under the leadership of Claiborne F. Jackson and Samuel Young, came to Lawrence. Besides the arms borne by individuals, this party had two pieces of artillery, loaded with musket balls. Finding that such a large force was not necessary to control the situation at Lawrence, the leaders sent squads here and there to other voting places.
The census taken in February showed a voting population of 2,905, but at this election 6,318 votes were cast. Of these 4,908 were afterward declared illegal. In the first, second, third, seventh, eighth and sixteenth districts, the frauds were so palp- able that election certificates were refused those receiving a major- ity of the votes, and on the 16th of April Governor Reeder issued an order for a special election, to be held May 22, to fill the vacancies. At the same time he ordered the legislature to meet at the town of Pawnee, near Fort Riley, on the first Monday in July. By these two orders the governor so widened the breach between himself and the pro-slavery men that it became irre- parable. Charges against him were lodged with the president, and his removal was demanded. To meet these charges he went to Washington and explained everything to President Pierce's satisfaction. The president, however, asked him to resign in the interests of party harmony, offering him a foreign appointment IV-16
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as an inducement, but the governor refused to entertain the propo- istion.
A stone building, forty by eighty feet, two stories high and well fitted up, had been erected by the Pawnee Town Company for a territorial capitol. The legislature met in this building July 2, and the governor removed his office to the new capitol. This first legislature consisted of a council of thirteen members and a house of representatives of twenty-six. The members of the council were: Thomas Johnson, R. R. Rees, John W. Forman, A. M. Coffey, D. Lykins, W. P. Richardson, H. J. Strickler, L. J. Eastin, D. A. N. Grover, William Barbee, Jolin Donalson, A. McDonald and E. Chapman. In the organization of the . council Thomas Johnson, superintendent of the Shawanese mis- sion, was elected president, John Halderman, chief clerk and C. B. Whitehead, sergeant at arms.
The members of the house were as follows: J. M. Banks, J. P. Blair, O. H. Browne, D. L. Croysdale, HI. B. C. Harris, W. A. Heiskell, S. D. Houston, Alexander S. Johnson, R. L. Kirk, F. J. Marshall, W. G. Mathias, M. W. McGee, HI. D. MeMeekin, A. Payne, Samuel Scott. W. 11. Tebbs. A. B. Wade, G. W. Ward, T. W. Waterson, Jonah Weddle, James Whitlock, Samuel A. Williams, Allan Wilkinson, H. W. Younger, J. H. Stringfellow, and J. C. Anderson.
J. H. Stringfellow, editor of the Squatter Sovereign, was elected speaker, James M. Lyle, chief clerk, and T. J. B. Cramer, sergeant at arms. Governor Reeder's message was read on the 3d, the free-state members were unseated on the 4th, and on the 6th both branches passed an act over the governor's veto, to remove the seat of government to the Shawanese Mission, near the Mis- souri state line. The legislature then adjourned to meet in the Manual Labor school buikling at the Shawanese Mission on the 16th of July. When the legislature reassembled at the appointed time, Governor Reeder sent a second message to it in which he said :
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