It was the doom of slavery that it should require the destruction of every thing that stood in its way. This being conceded, a resort to lawlessness—more especially on the part of a rude population like that of the Missouri border—was sure to follow the attempt to set up a free commonwealth in Kansas.
From the moment the organic Act became law, the future of Kansas was ever and foremost a national question. The Southern leaders had told the Missourians, if they would not see political power wrested from the South, they must secure Kansas to slavery at any cost. The North had met the challenge in the words of Senator Seward, who said, "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave States! Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers, as it is in the right."
The people of Western Missouri, of whom glimpses have been given in former chapters, were typical American borderers, rude of manner and speech, scarcely touched by the refining influences of the older East, open-handed and hospitable to a fault, but capable of committing brutal excesses when their passions were aroused, as they now were by the overwrought appeals of their most trusted leaders to make an end of abolitionism, if they would not see it become a menace to their domestic peace,—an incitement to insurrection or ceaseless turbulence along their border. Their character may be guessed from the name which in a spirit of bravado they took from their opponents' mouths,—that of border ruffians. They were expert with the rifle, daring riders, accustomed to out-of-door life from infancy, and hardened by experiences drawn from the vicissitudes of frontier life, into the bone of a self-asserting Americanism of the Davy Crockett school. Then, inasmuch as public opinion justified the settlement of private quarrels with the pistol or bowie-knife, the taking of life was held cheaply as compared with communities where the enforcement of law is the safeguard of the citizen. Add to this the frontiersman's habitual scorn for those reared in cities, or who shunned a resort to violence in support of their principles, and we have the measure of those adversaries whom the free-State men of the North were to face on their own ground, and with their own weapons in their hands.
The events flowing from this state of things may be briefly summed up.
While the free-State movement was steadily gaining ground by the coming-in of actual settlers, the Missourians made determined efforts to stay it, first by seizing upon the government of the Territory, and next by intimidating or driving out all who opposed their lawless acts. Thus an election for members of the Territorial Legislature (March, 1855) was controlled by Missourians who, in the most open manner, came into the voting precincts with arms, cast their ballots unchallenged, and then went home again to Missouri, so returning a law-making body by unlawful votes. This Legislature enacted laws establishing slavery. The free-State men refused to recognize it or its laws. They proceeded to form a constitution[1] prohibiting slavery, with which they asked admission into the Union. They also elected State officers, and a legislature which they meant to put in operation if worst came to worst. Meantime they organized themselves to repel force with force if necessary. All those who were opposed to making Kansas a slave State, now came together as the free-State party.
This party, which had just elected Charles Robinson governor, refused to pay taxes, obey writs, or in any way abide by the acts of the so-called bogus legislature. The pro-slavery party declared this treason. Congress rejected the Topeka Constitution, the House voting for its admission, the Senate against it.
In consequence of the rescue of a free-State man from the hands of the sheriff, Lawrence was soon besieged by a large force of Missourians, assembled under color of law, but in reality invaders of the Territory. The people of Lawrence prepared to make a sturdy defence by building earth-forts at all the approaches to the town, in which men armed with Sharpe's rifles were constantly stationed. Seeing them determined to fight, the Missourians left without venturing to attack them.
Finding the free-State men thus firm, the other party next invoked the judicial power to aid them in breaking up the combination made against the enforcement of illegal laws. Governor Robinson and many other free-State leaders were indicted for treason[2] by a grand jury, acting upon instruction of the chief justice, who defined the acts of the free-State men as levying war against the Federal Government. Robinson and others were arrested and imprisoned. Some of the leaders escaped out of the Territory.
Bills of indictment had also been found against the two newspapers printed at Lawrence, as well as the hotel in which the free-State men were in the habit of holding their meetings. These were declared public nuisances. Under the color of law, an armed posse proceeded to Lawrence, threw the presses into the river, gutted the hotel, and burned Governor Robinson's house to the ground. This took place May 20, 1856.
The next act of the actual government was the calling-in of United States troops to disperse the free-State legislature, which met at Topeka, July 4. All these proceedings had aroused the keenest interest throughout the Union, and while in Kansas opposition to oppression was momentarily quelled, it was acquiring greater strength[3] in all the free States.
Among the free-State men were some who believed such acts as had been committed at Lawrence called for reprisals in kind. Of these, James H. Lane[4] obtained a wide notoriety; but the animating spirit was undoubtedly John Brown of Osawatomie,[5] who held that the policy of submission was all wrong, and that the pro-slavery men too must be made to fear for their own safety before peace could be had. He avowed himself in favor of giving blow for blow. This idea found much favor with the fighting portion of the free-State men. On the question of slavery, Brown's mind was surely unsettled by the all-engrossing idea that slavery was a thing of violence which must die a violent death. To bring this about was now the one purpose of his life, and in pursuit of it he was as inexorable as fate. For its accomplishment he possessed certain qualities that make either the hero or martyr according as the purpose is weighed by history. An iron will, religious fervor amounting to fanaticism, were joined to a calm but resolute courage which no danger could daunt or turn from its purpose. He was a seventeenth-century Puritan of the Cromwellian stamp—a man of iron belonging to an iron age.
Brown soon had the border in terror of his deeds. The blows he struck were swift, secret and deadly. It was now the pro-slavery men who were driven out or assassinated, or had their homes fired at dead of night. Men sent to take him were themselves taken and held as prisoners. These acts led to retaliation, retaliation to fresh outrages, and for a time Kansas was given over to violence.
Believing Congress would admit them to the Union, the slavery party also formed a State Constitution at Lecompton, the capital. But an election for a new legislature had overwhelmingly defeated them, thus giving control of the Territorial body to the free-State men at last. So the Lecompton men now saw no hope for themselves except in their State Constitution. As they refused to submit the whole instrument to the people, the free-State men refrained from voting for or against the single proposition of "slavery" or "no slavery," seeing they must get the detested Constitution in any event. The returns showed the old determination still strong to fasten slavery on the people against their will. A large majority was obtained for the Constitution by stuffing the ballot-boxes with fraudulent votes. Of six thousand and odd votes (6,226), nearly half (2,720) were illegally cast. The Lecompton Constitution was, however, sent to Congress by President Buchanan with his approval. In Congress it provoked a stormy debate, was sent back to the people of Kansas for final ratification, and by them decisively rejected at the polls, August, 1858.
Though Kansas was kept out of the Union three years longer, her attitude in respect to slavery was now so little doubtful that the pro-slavery men gave up the contest in despair.
To maintain their cause with the country at large, and make it one on which the opponents of slavery could unite, the free-State men of Kansas lived for a time nearly in chaos rather than forfeit the name of law-abiding people. In this they showed admirable self-restraint. To maintain themselves in Kansas they were forced to adopt the tactics of their assailants at last, and deal blow for blow. Cultured people were roughened by this sort of life. It made them reckless. It weakened respect for law, even with the law-abiding. It brought material progress to a standstill, and engendered lifelong enmities among men who were to live together as neighbors. Social improvement was put back years. The very existence of a conflict had the tendency to bring bad men to the front, whose influence proved a hinderance to the settling of order in the State. The contest in Kansas proved Douglas wrong and John Brown right, in so far as the question of peaceful competition for the soil was involved in it. In a national sense it was therefore but the prelude to the great Civil War of the century.
[1] Constitution prohibiting Slavery, known in history as the Topeka Constitution. The State finally came into the Union under a Constitution framed at Wyandotte in 1859, ratified October of that year at the polls.
[2] Indicted for Treason. The courts were supported by Federal troops with whom the free-State men would not risk a conflict. Robinson and other "treason prisoners" suffered several months' imprisonment. It was a clever plan for depriving the free-State party of its leaders.
[3] Acquiring Strength. Since its publication in 1852, people everywhere had been reading Mrs. H. B. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a book which perhaps did more to consolidate public opinion against slavery, by directing attention to its worst evils, than all the political discussions of the time put together. In this view it deserves a place in the train of events following upon the compromises of 1850. Another episode of like tendency was the assault made on Senator Sumner by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, in the Senate Chamber, arising out of the Kansas troubles (1856). Still another was the decision of Justice Taney in the case of Dred Scott, a slave, declaring that slavery had a right to exist everywhere in the public domain until forbidden by State laws.
[4] James H. Lane of Indiana had served with credit in the Mexican War. He came to Kansas a pro-slavery man, but soon joined the free-State party, in which he obtained much influence—perhaps more than any man in it. Lane was a born leader of men. This explains his advancement in the face of the other fact that he never had the confidence of other eminent free-State leaders. With the agricultural settlers he was strong. Lane's great popularity elected him to the United States Senate from Kansas. In the Rebellion he commanded a brigade. His public and private integrity have been equally called in question. Though once the popular hero of his day, Lane was the product of abnormal conditions and died with them.
[5] Osawatomie is a jumbling together of Osage and Pottawatomie.