Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/694

 tyranny under which we are and have been; and said that, if any one supposed that institutions were to be imposed by force upon a free and enlightened people, they never knew, or had forgotten, the history of our fathers. American citizens bear in their breasts too much of the spirit of other and trying days, and have lived too long amid the blessings of liberty, to submit to oppression from any quarter; and the man who having once been free, could tamely submit to tyranny, was fit to be a slave.

"He urged the free state men of Kansas to forget all minor issues, and pursue determinedly the one great object, never swerving, but steadily pressing on as did the wise men who followed the star to the manger, looking back only for fresh encouragement. He counseled that peaceful resistance be made to the tyrannical and unjust laws of the spurious legislature; that appeals to the courts, to the ballot box. and to congress, be made for relief from this oppressive load; that violence should be deprecated as long as a single hope of peaceable redress remained; but if, at last, all these should fail—if, in the proper tribunals, there is no hope for our dearest rights, outraged and profaned—if we are still to suffer, that corrupt men may reap harvests watered by our tears —then there is one more chance for justice. God has provided, in the eternal frame of things, redress for every wrong; and there remains to us still the steady eye and the strong arm, and we must conquer, or mingle the bodies of the oppressors with those of the oppressed upon the soil which the Declaration of Independence no longer protects. But he was not at all apprehensive that such a crisis would ever arrive. He believed that justice might be found far short of so dreadful an extremity; and, even should an appeal to arms come, it was his opinion, that if we are well prepared, that moment the victory is won."

In pursuance of the recommendation of the mass meeting held at Lawrence on the 14th of August, and indorsed by the convention held at the Big Springs on the 5th and 6th of September, a convention was held at Topeka, on the 19th and 20th of September, at which it was determined to hold another convention at the same place on the fourth Tuesday of October, for the purpose of forming a constitution and state government; and to this end such proceedings were had as were deemed necessary for giving the notices, conducting the election of delegates, making the returns, and assembling the convention. With regard to the regularity of these proceedings, your committee sec no necessity for further criticism than is to be found in the fact that it was the movement of a political party instead of the whole body of the people of Kansas, conducted without the sanction of law, and in defiance of the constituted authorities, for the avowed purpose of overthrowing the territorial government established by congress.

The election for all these officers were held at the time specified; and on the fourth day of the present month, the new government was to have been put in operation, in conflict with the territorial government established by congress, and for the avowed purpose of subverting and overthrowing the same,