Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume I Part 14

You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract. In that speech you spoke of "the peaceful extinction of slavery" and used other expressions indicating your belief that the thing was, at some time, to have an end. Since then we have had thirty-six years of experience; and this experience has demonstrated, I think, that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us. The signal failure of Henry Clay and other good and great men, in 1849, to effect anything in favor of gradual emanc.i.p.ation in Kentucky, together with a thousand other signs, extinguishes that hope utterly. On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are created equal" a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim "a self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day for burning fire-crackers!

That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of that occasion, nearly half the States adopted systems of emanc.i.p.ation at once; and it is a significant fact that not a single State has done the like since. So far as peaceful, voluntary emanc.i.p.ation is concerned, the condition of the negro slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of a free mind, is now as fixed and hopeless of change for the better as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent. The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown and proclaim his subjects free republicans, sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation continue together permanently-forever-half slave, and half free?" The problem is too mighty for me. May G.o.d in his mercy superintend the solution. Your much obliged friend, and humble servant,

A. LINCOLN.

The reader has doubtless already noted in his mind the curious historical coincidence which so soon followed the foregoing speculative affirmation. On the day before Lincoln's first inauguration as President of the United States, the "Autocrat of all the Russias," Alexander II., by imperial decree emanc.i.p.ated his serfs; while six weeks after the inauguration, the "American masters," headed by Jefferson Davis, began the greatest war of modern times, to perpetuate and spread the inst.i.tution of slavery.

[Relocated Footnote (1): Their resolutions were radical for that day, but not so extreme as was generally feared. On the slavery question they declared their purpose:

To restore Kansas and Nebraska to the position of free territories; that as the Const.i.tution of the United States vests in the States and not in Congress the power to legislate for the rendition of fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the fugitive slave law; to restrict slavery to those States in which it exists; to prohibit the admission of any more slave States; to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; to exclude slavery from all territories over which the general Government has exclusive jurisdiction, and finally to resist the acquirement of any more territories unless slavery shall have been therein forever prohibited.]

[Relocated Footnote (2): "In the meantime our friends, with a view of detaining our expected bolters, had been turning from me to Trumbull till he had risen to 35 and I had been reduced to 15. These would never desert me except by my direction; but I became satisfied that if we could prevent Matteson's election one or two ballots more, we could not possibly do so a single ballot after my friends should begin to return to me from Trumbull. So I determined to strike at once; and accordingly advised my remaining friends to go for him, which they did, and elected him on that, the tenth ballot. Such is the way the thing was done. I think you would have done the same under the circ.u.mstances, though Judge Davis, who came down this morning, declares he never would have consented to the 47 [opposition] men being controlled by the five. I regret my defeat moderately, but am not nervous about it."-Lincoln to Washburne, February 9, 1855. MS.]

CHAPTER XXII

THE BORDER RUFFIANS

[Sidenote: May 30, 1854.]

The pa.s.sage of the Nebraska bill and the hurried extinction of the Indian t.i.tle opened nearly fifteen million acres of public lands to settlement and purchase. The whole of this vast area was yet practically tenantless. In all of Kansas there were only three military posts, eight or ten missions or schools attached to Indian reservations, and some scores of roving hunters and traders or squatters in the vicinity of a few well-known camping stations on the two princ.i.p.al emigrant and trading routes, one leading southward to New Mexico, the other northward towards Oregon. But such had been the interest created by the political excitement, and so favorable were the newspaper reports of the location, soil, and climate of the new country, that a few months sufficed to change Kansas from a closed and prohibited Indian reserve to the emigrant's land of promise.

Douglas's oracular "stump speech" in the Nebraska bill transferred the struggle for slavery extension from Congress to the newly organized territories. "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave States," said Seward in a Senate discussion; "since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of Freedom. We will engage in compet.i.tion for the virgin soil of Kansas, and G.o.d give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in right." With fifteen millions in the North against ten millions in the South, the result could not be in doubt.

[Sidenote: 1854.]

Feeling secure in this evident advantage, the North, in general, trusted to the ordinary and natural movement of emigration. To the rule, however, there were a few exceptions. Some members of Congress, incensed at the tactics of the Nebraska leaders, formed a Kansas Aid Society in Washington City and contributed money to a.s.sist emigrants. [Footnote: Testimony of the Hon. Daniel Mace, page 829, House Report No. 200, 1st Session, 34th Congress. "Howard Report."] Beyond this initiatory step they do not seem to have had any personal partic.i.p.ation in it, and its office and working operations were soon transferred to New York. Sundry similar organizations were also formed by private individuals. The most notable of these was a Boston company chartered in April, named "The Ma.s.sachusetts Emigrant Aid Company." The charter was soon abandoned, and the company reorganized June 13th, under private articles of a.s.sociation; [Footnote: E. E. Hale, "Kansas and Nebraska," p. 229. It was once more incorporated February 21, 1855, under the name of "The New England Emigrant Aid Company."] and in this condition it became virtually the working agency of philanthropic citizens of New England, headed by Eli Thayer. There were several auxiliary societies and a few independent a.s.sociations. But from what then and afterwards came to light, it appears that Mr. Thayer's society was the only one whose operations reached any degree of success deserving historical notice.

This company gave publicity, through newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts and pamphlets, of its willingness to organize emigrants into companies, to send them to Kansas in charge of trustworthy agents, and to obtain transportation for them at reduced rates. It also sent machinery for a few saw-mills, the types and presses for two or three newspapers, and erected a hotel or boarding-house to accommodate newcomers. It purchased and held only the land necessary to locate these business enterprises. It engaged in no speculation, paid no fare of any emigrants, and expressly disavowed the requirement of any oath or pledge of political sentiment or conduct. All these transactions were open, honest, and lawful, carefully avoiding even the implication of moral or political wrong.

Under the auspices of this society a pioneer company of about thirty persons arrived in Kansas in July, 1854, and founded the town of Lawrence. Other parties followed from time to time, sending out off- shoots, but mainly increasing the parent settlement, until next to Fort Leavenworth, the princ.i.p.al military post, Lawrence became the leading town of the Territory. The erection of the society hotel, the society saw-mills, and the establishment of a newspaper also gave it leadership in business and politics as well as population. This humane and praiseworthy enterprise has been gravely charged with the origin and responsibility of the political disorders which folio wed in Kansas. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before it had a.s.sisted five hundred persons to their new homes, the Territory had by regular and individual immigration, mainly from the Western States, acquired a population of 8601 souls, as disclosed by the official census taken after the first summer's arrivals, and before those of the second had begun. It needs only this statement to refute the political slander so industriously repeated in high places against the Lawrence immigrants.

Deeper causes than the philanthropy or zeal of a few Boston enthusiasts were actively at work. The balance of power between the free and slave States had been destroyed by the admission of California. To restore that balance the South had consummated the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as a first and indispensable step. The second equally indispensable step was to seize the political control of the new Territory.

Kansas lay directly west of the State of Missouri. For a frontier State, the pro-slavery sentiment of Missouri was very p.r.o.nounced, especially along the Kansas border. The establishment of slavery in this new region had formed the subject of public and local discussion before the Nebraska bill, and Senator Atchison had promised his western Missouri const.i.tuents to labor for such a result. From the time the unlooked-for course of Senator Douglas made it a practical possibility, Atchison was all zeal and devotion to this object, which he declared was almost as dear to him as his hope of heaven. When it finally became a question to be decided perhaps by a single frontier election, his zeal and work in that behalf were many times multiplied.

Current reports and subsequent developments leave no doubt that this Senator, being then acting Vice-President of the United States, [Footnote: By virtue of his office as President pro tempore of the United States Senate. The Vice-Presidency was vacant; William R. King, chosen with President Pierce, had died.] immediately after the August adjournment of Congress hurried away to his home in Platte County, Missouri, and from that favorable situation personally organized a vast conspiracy, running through nearly all the counties of his State adjoining the Kansas border, to decide the slavery question for Kansas by Missouri votes. Secret societies under various names, such as "Blue Lodges," "Friends' Society," "Social Band," "Sons of the South," were organized and affiliated, with all the necessary machinery of oaths, grips, signs, pa.s.swords, and badges. The plan and object of the movement were in general kept well concealed. Such publicity as could not be avoided served rather to fan the excitement, strengthen the hesitating, and frown down all dissent and opposition. Long before the time for action arrived, the idea that Kansas must be a slave State had grown into a fixed and determined public sentiment.

The fact is not singular if we remember the peculiar situation of that locality. It was before the great expansion of railroads, and western Missouri could only be conveniently approached by the single commercial link of steamboat travel on the turbid and dangerous Missouri River. Covering the rich, alluvial lands along the majestic but erratic stream lay the heavy slave counties of the State, wealthy from the valuable slave products of hemp and tobacco. Slave tenure and slavery traditions in Missouri dated back a full century, to the remote days when the American Bottom opposite St. Louis was one of the chief bread and meat producing settlements of New France, sending supplies northward to Mackinaw, southward to New Orleans, and eastward to Fort Duquesne. When in 1763 "the Illinois" country pa.s.sed by treaty under the British flag, the old French colonists, with their slaves, almost in a body crossed the Mississippi into then Spanish territory, and with fresh additions from New Orleans founded St. Louis and its outlying settlements; and these, growing with a steady thrift, extended themselves up the Missouri River.

Slavery was thus identified with the whole history and also with the apparent prosperity of the State; and it had in recent times made many of these Western counties rich. The free State of Iowa lay a hundred miles to the north, and the free State of Illinois two hundred to the east; a wall of Indian tribes guarded the west. Should all this security be swept away, and their runaways find a free route to Canada by simply crossing the county line? Should the price of their personal "chattels" fall one-half for want of a new market? With nearly fifteen million acres of fresh land to choose from for the present outlay of a trifling preemption fee, should not the poor white compel his single "black boy" to follow him a few miles west, and hoe his tobacco for him on the new fat bottom-lands of the Kaw River?

[Speech in Platte County. Wm. Phillips, "Conquest of Kansas," p. 48]

Even such off-hand reasoning was probably confined to the more intelligent. For the greater part these ignorant but stubborn and strong-willed frontiersmen were moved by a bitter hatred of "abolitionism," because the word had now been used for half a century by partisans high and low-Governors, Senators, Presidents-as a term of opprobrium and a synonym of crime. With these as fathers of the faith and the Vice-President of the United States as an apostle to preach a new crusade, is it astonishing that there was no lack of listeners, converts, and volunteers? Senator Atchison spoke in no ambiguous words. "When you reside in one day's journey of the Territory," said he, "and when your peace, your quiet, and your property depend upon your action, you can without an exertion send five hundred of your young men who will vote in favor of your inst.i.tutions. Should each 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 interests and will deserve their fate."

Western water transportation found its natural terminus where the Kaw or Kansas River empties into the Missouri. From this circ.u.mstance that locality had for years been the starting-point for the overland caravans or wagon-trains. Fort Leavenworth was the point of rendezvous for those going to California and Oregon; Independence the place of outfit for those destined to Santa Fe. Grouped about these two points were half a dozen heavy slaveholding counties of Missouri,-Platte, Clay, Bay, Jackson, Lafayette, Saline, and others. Platte County, the home of Senator Atchison, was their Western outpost, and lay like an outspread fan in the great bend of the Missouri, commanding from thirty to fifty miles of river front. Nearly all of Kansas attainable by the usual water transportation and travel lay immediately opposite. A glance at the map will show how easily local sentiment could influence or dominate commerce and travel on the Missouri River. In this connection the character of the population must be taken into account. The spirit of intolerance which once pervaded all slaveholding communities, in whatever State of the Union, was here rampant to an unusual degree. The rural inhabitants were marked by the strong characteristics of the frontier,-fondness of adventure, recklessness of exposure or danger to life, a boastful a.s.sertion of personal right, privilege, or prowess, a daily and hourly familiarity with the use of fire-arms. These again were heightened by two special influences-the presence of Indian tribes whose reservations lay just across the border, and the advent and preparation of each summer's emigration across the great plains. The "Argonauts of '49" were not all gamblers and cut-throats of border song and story. Generally, however, they were men of decision and will, all mere drift-wood in the great current of gold-seekers being soon washed ash.o.r.e and left behind. Until they finished their last dinner at the Planter's House in St. Louis, the fledgelings of cities, the lawyers, doctors, merchants, and speculators, were in or of civilization. Perhaps they even resisted the contamination of cards and drink, profanity and revolver salutations, while the gilded and tinseled Missouri River steamboat bore them for three days against its muddy current and boiling eddies to meet their company and their outfit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID R. ATCHISON.]

But once landed at Independence or Leavenworth, they were of the frontier, of the wilderness, of the desert. Here they donned their garments of red flannel and coa.r.s.e cloth or buckskin, thrust the legs of their trousers inside the tops of their heavy boots, and wore their bowie-knife or revolver in their outside belt. From this departure all were subject to the inexorable equality of the camp. Eating, sleeping, standing guard, tugging at the wheel or defending life and property,- there was no rank between captain and cook, employer and employed, savant and ignoramus, but the distribution of duty and the a.s.signment of responsibility. Toil and exposure, hunger and thirst, wind and storm, danger in camp quarrel or Indian ambush, were the familiar and ordinary vicissitudes of a three months' journey in a caravan of the plains.

All this movement created business for these Missouri River towns. Their few inhabitants drove a brisk trade in shirts and blankets, guns and powder, hard bread and bacon, wagons and live stock. Petty commerce busies itself with the art of gain rather than with the labor of reform. Indian and emigrant traders did not too closely scan their sources of profit. The precepts of the divine and the penalties of the human law sat lightly upon them. As yet many of these frontier towns were small hamlets, without even a pretext of police regulations. Pa.s.sion, therefore, ran comparatively a free course, and the personal redress of private wrongs was only held in check by the broad and acknowledged right of self-defense. Since 1849 and 1850, when the gold fever was at its height, emigration across the plains had slackened, and the eagerness for a revival of this local traffic undoubtedly exerted its influence in procuring the opening of the territories in 1854. The noise and excitement created by the pa.s.sage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act awakened the hope of frontier traders and speculators, who now greedily watched all the budding chances of gain. Under such circ.u.mstances these opportunities to the shrewd, to the bold, and especially to the unscrupulous, are many. Cheap lands, unlimited town lots, eligible trading sites, the mult.i.tude of franchises and privileges within the control of a territorial legislature, the offices to be distributed under party favoritism, offer an abundant lure to enterprise and far more to craft.

It was to such a population and under such a condition of things that Senator Atchison went to his home in Platte County in the summer of 1854 to preach his pro-slavery crusade against Kansas. His personal convictions, his party faith, his senatorial reflection, and his financial fortunes, were all involved in the scheme. With the help of the Stringfellows and other zealous co-workers, the town of Atchison was founded and named in his honor, and the "Squatter Sovereign" newspaper established, which displayed his name as a candidate for the presidency. The good-will of the Administration was manifested by making one of the editors postmaster at the new town.

President Pierce appointed as Governor of Kansas Territory Andrew H. Keeder, a member of his own party, from the free State of Pennsylvania. He had neither prominent reputation nor conspicuous ability, though under trying circ.u.mstances he afterwards showed diligence, judgment, integrity, and more than ordinary firmness and independence. It is to be presumed that his fitness in a partisan light had been thoroughly scrutinized by both President and Senate. Upon the vital point the investigation was deemed conclusive. "He was appointed," the "Washington Union" naively stated when the matter was first called in question, "under the strongest a.s.surance that he was strictly and honestly a national man. We are able to state further, on very reliable authority, that whilst Governor Reeder was in Washington, at the time of his appointment, he conversed with Southern gentlemen on the subject of slavery, and a.s.sured them that he had no more scruples in buying a slave than a horse, and regretted that he had not money to purchase a number to carry with him to Kansas." With him were appointed three Federal judges, a secretary, a marshal, and an attorney for the Territory, all doubtless considered equally trustworthy on the slavery question. The organic act invested the governor with very comprehensive powers to initiate the organization of the new Territory. Until the first legislature should be duly const.i.tuted, he had authority to fix election days, define election districts, direct the mode of returns, take a census, locate the temporary seat of government, declare vacancies, order new elections to fill them, besides the usual and permanent powers of an executive.

[Sidenote: Ex-Governor Reeder's Testimony, "Howard Report," pp. 933-985.]

Arriving at Leavenworth in October, 1854, Governor Reeder was not long in discovering the designs of the Missourians. He was urged to order the immediate election of a territorial legislature. The conspirators had already spent some months in organizing their "Blue Lodges," and now desired at once to control the political power of the Territory. But the Governor had too much manliness to become the mere pliant tool they wished to make him. He resented their dictation; he made a tour of inspection through the new settlements; and, acting on his own judgment, on his return issued a proclamation for a simple election of a delegate to Congress. At the appearance of this proclamation Platte County took alarm, and held a meeting on the Kansas side of the river, to intimidate him with violent speeches and a significant memorial. The Governor retorted in a letter that the meeting was composed of Missourians, and that he should resist outside interference from friend, foe, or faction. [Footnote: Governor Reeder to Gwiner and others, Nov. 21, 1854; copied into "National Era," Jan. 4, 1855.] Pocketing this rebuff as best they might, Senator Atchison and his "Blue Lodges" nevertheless held fast to their purpose. Paper proclamations and lectures on abstract rights counted little against the practical measures they had matured. November 29th, the day of election for delegate, finally arrived, and with it a formidable invasion of Missouri voters at more than half the polling places appointed in the Governor's proclamation.

In frontier life it was an every-day experience to make excursions for business or pleasure, singly or in parties, requiring two or three consecutive days, perhaps a night or two of camping out, for which saddle-horses and farm-wagons furnished ready transportation; and nothing was more common than concerted neighborhood efforts for improvement, protection, or amus.e.m.e.nt. On such occasions neighborly sentiment and comity required every man to drop his axe, or unhitch from the plow in the furrow, to further the real or imaginary weal of the community. In urgent instances non-compliance was fatal to the peace and comfort and sometimes to the personal safety of the settler. The movement described above had been in active preparation for weeks, controlled by strong and secret combinations, and many unwilling partic.i.p.ants were doubtless swept into it by an excited public opinion they dared not resist.

A day or two before the election the whole Missouri border was astir. Horses were saddled, teams harnessed, wagons loaded with tents, forage, and provisions, bowie-knives buckled on, revolvers and rifles loaded, and flags and inscriptions flung to the breeze by the more demonstrative and daring. Crossing the river-ferries from the upper counties, and pa.s.sing un.o.bstructed over the State line by the prairie- roads and trails from the lower, many of them camped that night at the nearest polls, while others pushed on fifty or a hundred miles to the spa.r.s.ely settled election districts of the interior. As they pa.s.sed along, the more scrupulous went through the empty form of an imaginary settlement, by nailing a card to a tree, driving a stake into the ground, or inscribing their names in a claim register, prepared in haste by the invading party. The indifferent satisfied themselves with mere mental resolves to become settlers. The utterly reckless silenced all scruples in profanity and drunkenness.

[Sidenote: Nov. 29, 1854.]

On election morning the few real squatters of Kansas, endowed with Douglas's delusive boon of "popular sovereignty," witnessed with mixed indignation and terror acts of summary usurpation. Judges of election were dispossessed and set aside by intimidation or stratagem, and pro- slavery judges subst.i.tuted without the slightest regard to regularity or law; judges' and voters' oaths were declared unnecessary, or explained away upon newly-invented phrases and absurd subtleties. "Where there's a will, there's a way," in wrong and crime, as well as in honest purpose and deed; and by more dishonest devices than we can stop fully to record the ballot-boxes were filled, through invasion, false swearing, riot, and usurpation, with ballots for Whitfield, the pro-slavery candidate for delegate to Congress, at nine out of the seventeen polling places-showing, upon a careful scrutiny afterwards made by a committee of Congress, an aggregate of 1729 illegal votes, and only 1114 legal ones.

This mockery of an election completed, the valiant Knights of the Blue Lodge, the fraternal members of the Social Band, the philanthropic groups of the Friends' Society, and the chivalric Sons of the South returned to their axe and plow, society lodge and bar-room haunt, to exult in a victory for Missouri and slavery over the "Abolition hordes and n.i.g.g.e.r thieves of the Emigrant Aid Society." The "Border Ruffians" of Missouri had written their preliminary chapter in the annals of Kansas. The published statements of the Emigrant Aid Society show that up to the date of election it had sent only a few hundred men, women, and children to the Territory. Why such a prodigious effort was deemed necessary to overcome the votes and influence of this paltry handful of "paupers who had sold themselves to Eli Thayer and Co." was never explained.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BOGUS LAWS

As the event proved, the invasion of border ruffians to decide the first election in Kansas had been entirely unnecessary. Even without counting the illegal votes, the pro-slavery candidate for delegate was chosen by a plurality. He had held the office of Indian Agent, and his acquaintance, experience, and the princ.i.p.al fact that he was the favorite of the conspirators gave him an easy victory. Governor Reeder issued his certificate of election without delay, and Whitfield hurried away to Washington to enjoy his new honors, taking his seat in the House of Representatives within three weeks after his election. Atchison, however, did not follow his example. Congress met on the first Monday of December, and the services of the Acting Vice- President were needed in the Senate Chamber. But of such importance did he deem the success of the conspiracy in which he was the leader, that a few weeks before the session he wrote a short letter to the Senate, giving notice of his probable absence and advising the appointment of a new presiding officer.

[Sidenote: Reeder Testimony, Howard Report, p. 934.]

[Sidenote: Howard Report, p. 9.]

As a necessary preliminary to organizing the government of the Territory, Governor Reeder, under the authority of the organic act, proceeded to take a census of its inhabitants. This work, carried on and completed in the months of January and February, 1855, disclosed a total population of 8601 souls, of whom 2905 were voters. With this enumeration as a definite guide, the Governor made an apportionment, established election districts, and, appointing the necessary officers to conduct it, fixed upon the 30th of March, 1855, as the day for electing the territorial legislature. Governor Reeder had come to Kansas an ardent Democrat, a firm friend of the Pierce Administration, and an enthusiastic disciple of the new Democratic dogma of "Popular Sovereignty." But his short experience with Atchison's Border Ruffians had already rudely shaken his partisanship. The events of the November election exposed the designs of the pro-slavery conspiracy, and no course was left him but to become either its ally or its enemy.

[Sidenote: Reeder instructions, Howard Report, pp. 107, 935.]

In behalf of justice, as well as to preserve what he still fondly cherished as a vital party principle, he determined by every means in his power to secure a fair election. In his appointment of election officers, census-takers, justices of the peace, and constables, he was careful to make his selections from both factions as fairly as possible, excepting that, as a greater and necessary safeguard against another invasion, he designated in the several election districts along the Missouri border two "free-State" men and one pro-slavery man to act as judges at each poll. He prescribed distinct and rigid rules for the conduct of the election; ordering among other things that the judges should be sworn, that constables should attend and preserve order, and that voters must be actual residents to the exclusion of any other home.

All his precautions came to nought. This election of a territorial legislature, which, as then popularly believed, might determine by the enactment of laws whether Kansas should become a free or a slave State, was precisely the coveted opportunity for which the Border Ruffian conspiracy had been organized. Its interference in the November election served as a practical experiment to demonstrate its efficiency and to perfect its plans. The alleged doings of the Emigrant Aid Societies furnished a convenient and plausible pretext; extravagant rumors were now circulated as to the plans and numbers of the Eastern emigrants; it was industriously reported that they were coming twenty thousand strong to control the election; and by these misrepresentations the whole border was wrought up into the fervor of a pro-slavery crusade.

[Sidenote: 1855.]

[Sidenote: Howard Report, pp. 9 to 44.]

[Sidenote: Howard Report, p. 30.]

[Sidenote: Ibid., p. 34.]