Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/150

142 one wing sacked Osawatomie and the main body was to capture and destroy Lawrence. No sooner was this done than the force of the United States army was to be called in to keep the conquered down. The success of the plan at this juncture might have precipitated Civil War in 1856 instead of 1861, and Geary hurried breathlessly to ward off the mad blow. He succeeded, and by strenuous exertions he was able with some truth to report in Washington before election time: "Peace now reigns in Kansas."

The news, though it helped to elect Buchanan, was received but coldly in Washington, for the Southerners knew how high a price Geary had paid. So evidently was the governor out of favor that before the spring of 1857, the third governor fled in mad haste from his post because of the enmity of his own supporters. It was clear to Washington that Geary's recognition of the free state cause, with the heavy immigration, had already destroyed the possibility of making Kansas a slave state. There were still, however, certain possibilities for finesse and political maneuvering. Slaves were already in Kansas and the Dred Scott Decision on March 6, 1857, legalized them there. Moreover, southeast Kansas, thanks to one of the most brutal raids in its history, in the fall of 1856, was still strongly pro-slavery. The constitutional convention was also in that party's hands. By gracefully yielding the legislature therefore to the patent free state majority, it seemed possible that political