791, or a majority, were for the free State or anti-slavery candidates.

Gov. Reeder1 was after a time removed and Wilson Shannon, of Ohio, appointed to fill his place. Mr. Reeder was at once nominated and elected for delegate in Congress. At the same time delegates were chosen for a constitutional convention. They met at Topeka on September 25, 1855, and promulgated a constitution in which slavery was forever prohibited, which, after a bloody fight between the people of Kansas and the armed Democrats of Missouri, was adopted.

On January 15, 1856, an election for State officers was held, resulting in choosing Charles Robinson for governor, and a legislature under the Topeka constitution. In April a large body of armed men from Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and other slave States, arrived in Kansas under command of Gen. Buford. Scandalous as it may seem, the Democratic United States marshal placed Buford's men on the pay rolls of the government and armed them with federal muskets.

These marauders started at once to lay waste the territory. The people of Lawrence, under promise of peace and protection, gave their arms to the sheriff. Instantly the Southern ruffians attacked the town, blew up the hotel, burned Gov. Robinson's house, destroyed the anti-slavery printing offices and rifled the residences of the free settlers.

Civil war now spread throughout the territory. The people of the North held meetings to enlist additional settlers, cash poured into the Tribune fund, and food, clothing, seeds, arms and money were sent in quantities to the beleagured freemen.

The legislature met at Topeka on July 4, 1856, and was dispersed by the mongrel United States troops. The "grand

1 Mr. Reeder went from Pennylvania a staunch Democrat, but the conscienceless frauds of the federal administration and of the Democracy in Kansas drove him at once over to the Republican party, in which he served faithfully till his death. He was removed because he would not aid in forcing slavery into Kansas.

jury" indicted Gov. Reeder, Gov. Robinson and James H. Lane, and other Free-State men for "treason," and the Democrats gleefully cast them into jail. On September 8, 1856, John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, was appointed governor to succeed Shannon. He issued a proclamation of peace, and promised the free settlers protection in their persons, pursuits and property. They therefore laid down their arms.

This was no sooner done than the pirates from the Southern States organized a numerous army, and with their regiments and cannons attacked Lawrence under the command of a leading Democratic member of the Missouri legislature. Gov. Geary, calling forth the United States troops, finally induced the invaders to retire.

On January 26, 1857, the free legislature met at Topeka, but was dispersed by the United States marshal, who captured several members and cast them into jail at Tecumseh. The slaveryites now met in legislature at Lecompton and adopted a resolution calling a convention to frame another State constitution. Gov. Geary resigned because the pro-slavery United States Senate refused to confirm his appointment of Harrison to succeed Lecompte as chief justice. Lecompte had discharged without trial the ruffians that came before him for killing Free-State men. Robt. J. Walker, of Mississippi, was appointed to succeed Geary.

T'he election for a constitutional convention was participated in only by a few slavery men along the border. Soon after, the regular territorial election was held. Gov. Walker guaranteed protection to the settlers, and they turned out and elected M. J. Parrott delegate in Congress by a vote of 7,600 to 3,700, and secured a large majority of the legislature.

Enraged at Gov. Walker for guaranteeing protection to the settlers on election day, the pro-slavery invaders attempted to overturn the result by a false return from Oxford, a place of only eleven small shanties. Gov. Walker rejected it as a manifest fraud, and on making a further examination

discovered that a somewhat distinguished Democrat of Louisiana had copied the fraudulent Oxford return alphabetically from an old Cincinnati directory!

The pro-slavery convention, appointed without an election worthy of the name, met at Lecompton and promulgated a constitution recognizing and protecting slavery and prohibiting the passage of any laws of emancipation. A despicable trick was resorted to for the purpose of securing its adoption. The ballots were prepared for and against thus: "Constitution with slavery," and "Constitution without slavery." This thimble-rig game made it impossible to vote against the Lecompton constitution. No matter which ticket was voted, it was for the slavery Lecompton constitution.

Gov. Walker condemned both the constitution and the nefarious proceedings connected with its promulgation, and started for Washington to prevent Congress from accepting it. Apprised of his mission, the President hastened to approve the fraudulent instrument, and had officially signed it before the arrival of Gov. Walker, who, shocked at the dishonorable course of the administration, promptly resigned. J. W. Denver, of California, was appointed to succeed him. An election was held for the rejection or adoption of the slave clauses of the Lecompton constitution, on December 21, 1856. Being unable to vote in a free manner, the Free-State men did not go to the polls. The obnoxious and fraudulent instrument was therefore adopted by a vote of 6,143 to 569. The affirmative votes came almost solidly from a little stretch of uninhabited country along the Missouri border, in which whites and blacks from every slave State in the South, including, it was alleged, an ex-governor and two congressmen, fraudulently stuffed the ballot-boxes.

The invaders' legislature ordered a vote for State officers under the Lecompton constitution, on January 4, 1858. The settlers' legislature then submitted the Lecompton constitution to the people, as a whole, to be accepted or rejected, the elec

tion also to take place on January 4, 1858. It was rejected by a majority of 10,226. Congress, after a long discussion, again sent the Lecompton fraud to a vote of the people, and again was it rejected by a majority of 10,000 votes, on August 3, 1858. Gov. Denver then resigned and Samuel Medary, of Ohio, succeeded him.

The settlers' legislature submitted another constitution, which was adopted. Some portions of it proved unsatisfactory, and in January, 1859, the legislature submitted to the people the question of whether they would call another constitutional convention. The proposition was accepted by about 4,000 majority. The new constitution, forever prohibiting slavery, was promulgated at Wyandot, July 4, 1859, and was adopted October 4, by 4,000 majority.

On December 6, 1859, a State election was held under the new constitution and Charles Robinson was chosen governor. On January 29, 1861, Congress having approved her constitution, Kansas, with an humane and Christian constitution, became a free State, and under her blood-stained banner marched proudly but peaceably into the capitol just as her foes of the South were rallying to dismember the Union.

The facts thus briefly related constitute the civil history of the Kansas struggle against slavery. A fratricidal war raged over her rich plains for three years. Bloodshed, rob

bery, devastation and fire spread like a pestilence through her humble settlements, and but a faint shadow of the fearful record made by pro-slavery Democracy during that eventful period is brought out in this narration. The details of it would fill many volumes.

The scenes of butchery, persecution and atrocity that attended the effort of the Democratic flesh-brokers to forcibly overthrow their old-time political god, State-sovereignty, because that sovereignty had been asserted against instead of in favor of human bondage in Kansas, have never been written. Nor will they ever be recorded, except upon the pages

of those mighty tomes, which, fortunately for the Democracy, will not be opened until the end of time, when God shall sit in judgment on us all with punishment according to our several sins.

CHAPTER X.

THE BLUDGEON IN THE SENATE:

Charles Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas"-Slavocracy Aroused—Its Devotees Contrive Violence-Preston Brooks Assaults Sumner -Committees Appointed to Investigate-Henry Wilson, Sumner's Colleague, Describes the Affair--Brooks' Egotistical Speech-Jeff. Davis and the "Chivalry" Cast Laurels upon the Assailant-The Richmond Enquirer's Brutal Sentiments-Sumner and His Friends Must Hang or the Union Dissolve-South Carolina ResolutionsSouthern Sentiment-Other Northern Freemen Threatened With Similar Treatment-Sumner Never Fully Recovered-Ultimate Results of the Ruffianism of Brooks and His Friends.

It is impossible to deny that in the popular view the horrors of crime are added to or mitigated by immediate surroundings. The world is shocked when a President or other high dignitary is struck down by the agents of political diabolism, but the drunken brawl that ends fatally passes into oblivion without particular notice or regret.

On the 19th day of May, 1856, Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, delivered, on the floor of the Senate, his famous philippic, "The Crime Against Kansas." While it was dignified and devoid of personality, it was nevertheless a terrible indictment of the pro-slavery Democracy. In closing he made answer to Senator Butler, of South Carolina, saying:

The Senator dreams that he can subdue the North. He disclaims the open threat but his conduct implies it. How little that senator knows himself, or the strength of the cause he presents! He is but a mortal man; but against him