The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 36

Of course the disintegration of the two old parties would, under ordinary conditions, proceed slowly. The members of neither were willing to enter the organization, or bear the name, of the other. As the Northern Whigs had unanimously opposed the repeal of the restriction of 1820 upon slavery in the Territories, it was not unnatural that they should at first feel that they were already the anti-slavery-extension party, and that all persons holding to that principle should be {418} willing to march under their banner. Some of the more liberal minds among them in the Northwest, especially in Wisconsin and Michigan, had, already in the summer of 1854, joined with the Free-soilers, and the Democrats who opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to form a new party, under a new name, the Republican party, which, indeed, had no other principle than that already represented by the Northern Whigs, but which did not repel the Democrats by requiring them to desert to their old enemy. The great majority of both Whigs and Democrats were, however, rather waiting to see how home rule in the Territories would work, and were in the meantime busying themselves, in large degree, with other questions, chief among which was the question whether the country ought not to be preserved against foreign Roman Catholic immigration, the question which gave rise to the short-lived Know-nothing party, with its principle of America for Americans, the only real service of which movement was the aid which it lent to the dissolution of the Whig party, and to the preparation of the way for the union of the Northern Whigs with the anti-slavery-extension elements of the other parties into the Republican party.

The interference of the Missourians in the first election in Kansas, demonstrating the impracticability of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories, was the very thing necessary to hasten the development of the Republican party, but it came too late to influence the elections of 1854, and the shock which it caused lost some of the sharpness of its effect before the autumn of 1856.

The Congress to which Whitfield presented his credentials was the one whose House of Representatives had been chosen in 1852. His claim to his seat was at first not resisted, and the first step in the programme for making Kansas a slaveholding Territory was thus successful.

{419} [Sidenote: The Territorial legislature.]

Of far more importance, however, than the election of the delegate to Congress was the election of the members of the first Territorial legislature, since, according to the principle of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories, it would have the power probably of determining primarily the legality or illegality of slavery in Kansas.

In February of 1855, the Territorial authorities took a census of the inhabitants of the Territory, and it was estimated that there were between eight and nine thousand bona fide settlers in the Territory, about three thousand of whom were voters. It was also found that about four-sevenths of the legal voters had emigrated from the South. It is not probable, however, that all of these were pro-slavery men.

[Sidenote: The third invasion of the Missourians.]

March 13th following was the day appointed for the election. All through the month the Missourians of the border counties were a.s.sembling in their "Blue Lodges," arming, organizing and drilling. On the day of the election some four or five thousand of them marched, fully armed, to the voting places in the more eastern districts of the Territory, and compelled the acceptance of their ballots by the regular judges of the elections, or by judges appointed by themselves.

About six thousand three hundred votes were cast at this election, and it was estimated that three-fourths of them were cast by the Missouri invaders. Some of them pretended to be residents of the Territory, but most of those who thought it necessary to justify the procedure at all claimed that the Emigrant Aid Company had sent out men for the sole purpose of voting, and that their own action was retaliatory. The invasion was a notoriously public deed. The Missourians came in companies, with music and banners, and made no attempt at concealment.

The {420} Governor of the Territory resided, at the time, near the Missouri border, and probably had ocular proof of the outrage. The anti-slavery men thought that he would set the entire election aside.

He did call for protests, and appointed April 5th as the time for hearing the same and canva.s.sing the returns.

When the day arrived protests had been received from only six or seven of the eighteen election districts, and affected the elections of not more than three of the thirteen persons returned as elected to the upper house, and of not more than nine of the twenty-six persons returned as elected to the lower house, of the Territorial legislature.

[Sidenote: Governor Reeder and the Territorial elections.]

Dr. Robinson and the anti-slavery men who had gathered about the Governor as a sort of body-guard wanted the Governor to declare the entire election null and void, but the Governor was a good lawyer, and he quickly determined that he could not p.r.o.nounce an election null and void in a district from which no charges of fraud were presented, on account of fraud charged in some other district, and that he could not refuse his certificate to any one elected on the face of the returns, if n.o.body disputed the regularity of his election. Upon examining the disputed cases he decided to refuse his certificate to eight of the twelve persons chosen on the face of the disputed returns. Thirty-one members were thus duly qualified to take their seats, and new elections for eight seats were ordered. Of these thirty-one, twenty-eight were counted as pro-slavery men, a large majority in both houses.

Dr. Robinson and the anti-slavery men found great fault with the Governor, and charged him with being frightened out of his original purpose to set the entire election aside, but it is difficult to see how he could have done this without protests against the return of each {421} and every person. It would certainly have been an arbitrary procedure to have done so. If the anti-slavery men were not brave enough to protest, it certainly did not become them to taunt the Governor with backing down, when they gave him nothing upon which to base the refusal to issue his certificates.

[Sidenote: The new elections to the legislative seats unfilled at the first elections.]

The 22nd day of the following month (May) was appointed for holding the elections for the seats declared unfilled by the Governor. The anti-slavery candidates were elected to all of them. The pro-slavery men ignored the election. This meant that those holding the Governor's certificate by virtue of this election would be rejected by the legislature itself, and those returned as elected at the first election would be seated, under the power of the legislature to determine finally upon the legitimacy of its members. This happened as soon as the legislature a.s.sembled and organized itself in the first days of July.

[Sidenote: The organization of the first legislature of Kansas Territory.]

The legislature as thus organized contained only a single anti-slavery man, a Mr. Houston, and he voluntarily vacated his seat a few weeks later in great disgust. From a technical point of view this legislature was a legitimate body, but from a moral and a political point of view it did not represent the people of the Territory. It represented simply the pro-slavery party, and used its powers in utter disregard of justice and right reason.

[Sidenote: The problem for the anti-slavery men. Dr. Robinson's plan.]

The great problem for the anti-slavery men now was to repudiate the jurisdiction of this legislature without rebelling against the general Government and its agent in the Territory, the Governor. Dr. Robinson had had the experience in California of aiding to make a Commonwealth in the Union, without the transitional period of {422} Territorial organization. He now applied this experience to the solution of the Kansas question.

The idea of Dr. Robinson and his colleagues was, to hold a convention of the people of the Territory for the purpose of framing an organic statute for Commonwealth government, which, after adoption by the people, should be sent to Congress, with a pet.i.tion for the admission of Kansas into the Union as a Commonwealth. They proposed in the meantime to get on without any Territorial government as best they could.

Their idea was, in the second place, to ignore the Territorial government altogether as bogus, but to yield obedience to the officials of the general Government in the Territory. This distinction might be made, so far as the Territorial legislature was concerned, upon the "popular sovereignty" principle. The difficulty was in applying it to the Governor and the Territorial judges appointed by the President. To distinguish between their functions in such a way as to deny their authority when administering the acts of the Territorial legislature, and yield to it when administering the acts of Congress in the Territory, was certainly a very delicate procedure, if possible at all. Such distinctions would have to be very clearly understood, and very correctly applied in each case, in order to avoid the charge of rebellion and treason.

[Sidenote: Conflict between the Governor and the Territorial legislature.]

Had the Governor remained true to the legislature it is possible that this plan of rebellion against the Territorial government might have been suppressed at the outset, but such was not to be the course of history. He called the legislature to a.s.semble at p.a.w.nee on July 2nd.

It remained in session there only four days. It did little more than unseat the persons holding the Governor's certificate by virtue of the second election, and seat {423} those to whom he had denied his certificate on account of fraud at the first election. It then adjourned itself to Shawnee Mission, a place nearer the Missouri border. The Governor denied the power of the legislature to do this, since by the Act organizing the Territory, the legislature must first meet at the time and place appointed by the Governor, and was vested by the Act with power, thereafter, only over the time of commencing its regular sessions. The Governor vetoed the proposition of the legislature to change its place of meeting. The legislature pa.s.sed the project over his veto, and removed to Shawnee Mission; after which the Governor broke off all official connection with it. There is little doubt that the pro-slavery legislature wanted to be where it could be easily supported by the Missourians, and that the Governor considered this a menace to his own independence, and an outrage upon the people of Kansas, and upon the principle of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories.

[Sidenote: Sharpe's riles.]

The att.i.tude now a.s.sumed by the Governor toward the legislature at Shawnee Mission was a great encouragement to the anti-slavery men. Dr.

Robinson had already sent to Mr. Thayer for Sharpe's rifles, and, at the time of the Governor's quarrel with the legislature, a sufficient number of these had arrived to furnish almost every anti-slavery man with a good outfit.

[Sidenote: Factional movements among the anti-slavery men suppressed.]

Dr. Robinson had, at the same time, overcome the attempts of James S.

Lane to separate the anti-slavery men into parties, by the organization of a Democratic party in Kansas. In a powerful speech at Lawrence, on July 4th, 1855, the Doctor convinced his hearers of the necessity for all anti-slavery men standing together until Kansas should be admitted into the Union as a {424} non-slaveholding Commonwealth. It was in this address that the Doctor repudiated the existing legislature as a Missouri inst.i.tution, advising resistance to the execution of its acts, and made his noted declaration, that, if slavery in Missouri was impossible with freedom in Kansas, then slavery in Missouri must die in order that freedom in Kansas might live.

[Sidenote: Excitement in Missouri and throughout the country over the "Free-state" movement.]

These bold utterances startled the North and the South, the people of Kansas and, especially, the people of Missouri. This speech, together with the letter of M. F. Conway to Governor Reeder, resigning his seat in the legislature and repudiating that body "as derogatory to the respectability of popular government and insulting to the virtue and intelligence of the age," set the "Free-state" scheme in motion.

[Sidenote: The enactments of the Territorial legislature.]

The enactments of the Territorial legislature greatly aided the movement by demonstrating to the people what they had to expect from the dominance of that body. They made the decoying, or aiding therein, of a slave away from his master in the Territory grand larceny, punishable by death. They made the decoying into Kansas of any slave away from his master in any other place, for the purpose of effecting his freedom, grand larceny, punishable by death. And they made the denial of the right to hold slaves in Kansas, either by word of mouth or in writing or printing, a felony, punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than two years.

[Sidenote: The North aroused by this legislation.]

When the knowledge of this infamous legislation spread throughout the North, it roused that section of the country to new efforts for peopling Kansas with anti-slavery men, who would rescue the Territory from the reign of such laws and such law-makers. The necessary reinforcements {425} were being a.s.sembled in the North when the creation of the "Free-state" government was begun.

[Sidenote: The Topeka const.i.tution.]

A series of conventions, beginning with the convention at Lawrence on August 14th, and culminating with that a.s.sembled at Topeka on the 23rd day of October, 1855, consolidated the anti-slavery men in the Territory into the "Free-state" party, constructed a temporary election machinery, and produced, finally, a proposed Commonwealth const.i.tution, which, in addition to the provisions for the structure of a Commonwealth government for Kansas, contained a clause prohibiting slavery in Kansas after July 4th, 1857, and excluding negroes from residence in Kansas after that date.

[Sidenote: The removal of Governor Reeder; and his election as Congressional delegate.]

In the meantime Governor Reeder had been removed by the President from the governorship of the Territory, and the Secretary of the Territory, one Daniel Woodson, a pro-slavery man, had become acting Governor for the time being. Ex-Governor Reeder now went over to the anti-slavery men, and was chosen by them on October 9th, at the same election at which the delegates to the Topeka convention were chosen, as delegate to Congress. Over twenty-seven hundred votes were cast at this election.

[Sidenote: The ratification of the Topeka const.i.tution; and the establishment of the "Free-state" government.]

On December 15th, the Topeka const.i.tution was submitted to the suffrages of the people. Seventeen hundred and thirty-one votes were cast in favor of its adoption, and forty-six votes against it. The pro-slavery men took no part in the voting. It is probable, however, that a majority of the legal voters in Kansas ratified this const.i.tution. On January 5th, 1856, the elections for the legislative members and officials of the government provided by this const.i.tution were held, and Dr. Robinson was chosen Governor.

{426} [Sidenote: The first violence.]

It was at this election that the conflict of arms between the "Free-state" government and the Territorial government began. A Territorial military company, called the Kickapoo Rangers, threatened to interfere with the elections at the town of Easton. A captain, R.

P. Brown, organized a company of "Free-state" men at Leavenworth, and went to Easton to protect the ballot box. As the evening drew on a fight ensued, in which a Territorial man was killed. The next day the Leavenworth company was attacked, on their return, by the Kickapoo company, and Captain Brown was taken prisoner. Some movements were in progress for trying him, when one of the ruffians put an end to the matter by striking him on the head with a hatchet.

[Sidenote: The "Free-state" government and the Administration.]

Two local governments of Kansas were now in existence. One, the Territorial, had been recognized as legitimate by the Washington Government. What, then, was the other? Was it a body of insurrectionists? If so, must the general Government suppress it? And, if the general Government must suppress it, must it do so at once, or should it wait until the insurrectionists should undertake to exercise some governmental power? These were knotty problems for the Administration at Washington, but they were problems which had to be solved. From the inaction of the Washington authorities we must conclude that the prevailing view with them was that the new government in Kansas must do something before it could be dealt with.

[Sidenote: The acts of the "Free-state" legislature.]

The "Free-state" legislature met March 4th, 1856. It prepared a memorial to Congress, praying for the entrance of Kansas as a Commonwealth into the Union, under the Topeka const.i.tution. It elected Reeder and Lane United States Senators. It appointed a committee to put the {427} legislative business into shape for the next session.

And it pa.s.sed a few laws.

None of these acts were treasonable. Treason, by the Const.i.tution, is levying war against the United States or any of the "States," or adhering to those who are doing so, giving them aid and comfort; and levying war has been defined by the Supreme Court to be the actual a.s.sembly of armed men for the treasonable purpose. Not even the voluntary submission to the laws pa.s.sed by the "Free-state"

legislature was treason or rebellion. The danger point would be reached when the "Free-state" government should undertake to enforce its laws, or should interpose armed resistance to the enforcement of the laws of the United States, or of the acts of the Territorial government, which government had been recognized as legitimate by the general Government, which was, in fact, but the local agent of the general Government.