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CHAPTER XIX.

KANSAS-ITS HISTORY AND POLITICS.

THE extensive region included within the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was annexed to the United States, by virtue of a treaty with France, concluded at Paris, on the thirtieth day of April, 1803. It formed a portion of the vast tract of country known as the "Louisiana Purchase." That purchase embraced all the lands within the limits of the following states and territories, viz.: Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa; Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minesota, west of the Mississippi River.

In December, 1818, the legislature of Missouri Territory petitioned Congress for admission into the Union as an independent state. A bill, embodying the views of the petitioners, having been accordingly framed, on the nineteenth day of February following, an amendment, pro hibiting the further introduction of slavery, or involuntary servitude, was adopted by a vote of eighty-seven to seventy-six, in the House of Representatives. Also, on the fifteenth day of March, another amendment, providing that all children born within said state after its admission should be free at the age of twenty-five years, was adopted in the House, by a vote of seventy-nine to sixty-seven. The Senate of the United States, however, refused to concur in these two amendments, and the House, insisting upon them, the bill did not pass at that session. But during the next session of Congress, when the Missouri bill came again under consideration, in order to free the

measure from the embarrassment resulting from the disagreement of the two houses, a compromise was effected, by which Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state, without any restriction or limitation whatever, as to the existence of slavery, on the express condition, that slavery should be forever prohibited in all the territory of the United States north of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude. For that purpose, both houses concurred in an amendment to the bill, by which it was enacted, “That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and is hereby forever prohibited; provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any state or territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid." After the incorporation of that amendment, the bill admitting Missouri into the Union was passed early in March, 1820. That amendment constituted the celebrated compromise of 1820.

The principle of that compromise has twice been solemnly recognized and reaffirmed. First, upon the admission of Texas, in 1845, the joint resolution of March the first provides that such states as may be formed out of that portion of the territory of Texas which lies south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise Line, shall be admitted, with or without slavery, as the people

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of each state asking admission may desire; and in states formed north of that line, slavery shall be prohibited. And second, in 1848, when the admission of Oregon was under consideration, Mr. Douglass, in the Senate, moved an amendment, by which the Missouri Compromise Line was extended to the Pacific Ocean; but as the House of Representatives did not concur in the amendment, the Senate receded, and substituted a clause prohibiting slavery.

Other measures, also, of the federal government, running through a period of more than thirty years, have in some instances sanctioned that compromise; in others, recognized it as binding and obligatory upon the government and people. The principle of sustaining that compromise is embraced in the following solemn compacts among the people of the United States:

1st. The admission of Missouri as a slave state. 2d. The admission of Texas into the Union.

3d. The organization of the Territory of Oregon. 4th. The establishment of the Texan boundary.

5th. The organization of the Territory of New Mexico. 6th. The organization of the Territory of Utah. 7th. The admission of California.

8th. The fugitive slave act.

9th. The suppression of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.

Yet, notwithstanding the course of federal legislation for thirty years, the act providing a territorial organization for the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, approved the twenty-seventh day of May, 1854, repeals the restriction upon the existence of slavery north of the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, and leaves the character of the institutions of the states in contemplation there, with respect of freedom or slavery,

to be determined by a contest upon the soil. From thence have followed a most terrible excitement throughout the entire Union, and all the scenes of anarchy and blood that have been enacted within those territories. For the question, once supposed to have been finally disposed of, is made again an open question to be settled by political and by physical force, whether the new states shall be free states or slave states. Every inhabitant of those territories has a direct personal interest, and every citizen of the United States a political interest, in the settlement of that vexed question. As the controversy has now got to be decided within the territories themselves, the advocates and the enemies of slavery are alike hastening thither to secure the necessary majorities, to sanction or to prohibit the existence of slavery.

Hon. A. H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, was appointed Governor of Kansas Territory; and Daniel Woodson, of Arkansas, secretary. The first election of delegate to Congress was fixed to take place on the twenty-ninth day of November, 1854. Governor Reeder had appointed election judges, and had instructed them to administer the oaths to every person suspected of residing in another state or territory. It would seem to have been determined upon by a large number of persons, inhabitants of the State of Missouri, to vote at the approaching Kansas election. A few days before the polls were to be opened, a great crowd assembled at St. Joseph, in Missouri, and were addressed by General Stringfellow, with reference to the election soon to be held in the adjacent territory. In the course of that speech, he said: "I tell you to mark every scoundrel among you that is the least tainted with freesoilism, and exterminate him. Neither give nor take quarter from the d-d rascals. To those who have qualms of conscience, as to violating laws-state or

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national-the time has come when such impositions must be disregarded; and I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in Kansas, in defiance of Reeder and his vile myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. What right has Governor Reeder to rule Missourians in Kansas? His proclamation and prescribed oath must be repudiated."

Similar gatherings took place at other points within the Missouri border. On the day of the election, the Missourians, having crossed over into Kansas, forcibly took possession of the polls in several election districts, and deposited their votes in such numbers as they pleased. In reference to those transactions, the people of Kansas in their representation, say: "The first ballot-box that was opened upon our soil was closed to us by overpowering numbers and impending force. So bold and reckless were our invaders, that they cared not to conceal their attack. They came upon us, not in the guise of voters, to steal away our franchise, but openly, to snatch it with a strong hand. They came directly from their own homes, and in compact and organized bands, with arms in hand, and provisions for the expedition, marched to our polls; and when the work was done, returned whence they came. It is enough to say, that in three districts-in which, by the most irrefragable evidence, there were not one hundred and fifty voters, most of whom refused to participate in the mockery of the elective franchise-these invaders polled over a thousand votes." It is alleged that, in consequence of this violation of the elective franchise, Whitfield was elected over his competitors, as the delegate for Kansas to the Congress of the United States.

In the spring following, on the thirteenth day of March, at the election of members of the territorial legislature,