Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/703

 be effectual, were used to people it with a majority of inhabitants opposed to slavery, is now considered as a violation of, or an opposition to the law establishing the territory, then the declarations and provisions of that law were hut a premeditated delusion, which not only allowed such measures, but actually invited them by enacting that the largest number of the settlers should determine the condition of the country; thus inviting efforts for numbers. Such an invitation must have been expected to produce such efforts en both sides.

It now becomes necessary to inquire what has in fact taken place. If violence has taken place as the natural, and perhaps unavoidable, consequences of the nature of the experiment, bringing into dangerous contact and collision inflammable elements, it was the vice of a mistaken law, and immediate measures should be taken by congress to correct such law. If force and violence have been substituted for peaceful measures there, legal provisions should be made and executed to correct all the wrong such violence has produced, and to prevent their recurrence, and thus secure a fair fulfillment of the experiment by peaceful means, as originally professed and presented in the law.

A [sic]succient statement of the origin and progress of the material events in Kansas is this: After the passage of this law, establishing the territory of Kansas, a large body of settlers rapidly entered into said territory with a view to permanent inhabitancy therein. Most of these were from the free states of the west and north, who probably intended by their votes and influence to establish there a free state, agreeable to the law which invited them. Some part of those from the northern states had been encouraged and aided in this enterprise by the Emigrant Aid Society formed in Massachusetts, which put forth some exertions in this laudable object, by open and public measures, in providing facilities for transportation to all peaceable citizens who desired to become permanent settlers in said territory, and providing therein hotels, mills, etc., for the public [sic]accomodation of that new country.

The governor of Kansas, having, in pursuance of law, divided the territory into districts, and procured a census thereof, issued his proclamation for the election of a legislative assembly therein, to take place on the 30th day of March, 1855, and directed how the same should be conducted, and the returns made to him agreeable to the law establishing said territory. On the day of election, large bodies of armed men from the state of Missouri appeared at the polls in most of the districts, and by most violent and tumultuous carriage and demeanor overawed the defenseless inhabitants, and by their own votes elected a large majority of the members of both houses of said assembly. On the returns of said election being made to the governor, protests and objections were made to him in relation to a part of said districts; and, as to them, he set aside such, and such only, as by the returns appeared to be bad. In relation to others, covering, in all, a majority of the two houses, equally vicious in fact, but apparently good by formal returns, the inhabitants thereof, borne down by said violence and intimidation, scattered and discouraged, and laboring under apprehensions of personal violence, refrained and desisted from presenting any protest to the governor in relation thereto; and he, then