Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/715

 and they could all come up and vote. lie told the judges that there was no use in swearing the others, as they would all swear as he had done. After the other judges concluded to receive Col. Young's vote, Mr. Abbott resigned as judge of election, and Mr. Benjamin was elected in his place.

The polls were so much crowded until late in the evening, that, fur a time, when the men had voted, they were obliged to get out by being hoisted up on the roof of the building where the election was being held, and pass oat over the house. Afterward a passage-way through the crowd was made by two lines of men being formed, through which the voters could get up to the polls. Col. Young asked that the old men be allowed to go up first and vote, as they were tired with the traveling, and wanted to get back to camp.

The Missourians sometimes came up to the polls in procession, two by two, and voted.

During the day the Missourians drove off the ground some of the citizens, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Bond, and Mr. Willis. They threatened to shoot Mr. Bond, and a crowd rushed after him threatening him, and as he ran from them some shots were fired at him as he jumped off the bank of the river and made his escape. The citizens of the town went over in a body, late in the afternoon, when the polls had become comparatively clear, and voted.

Before the voting had commenced, the Missourians said, if the judges appointed by the governor did not receive their votes, they would choose other judges. Some of them voted several times, changing their hats or coats and coming up to the window again. They said they intended to vote first, and after they had got through, then the others could vote. Some of them claimed a right to vote under the organic act, from the fact that their mere presence in the territory constituted them residents, though they were from Wisconsin, and had homes in Missouri. Others said they had a right to vote, because Kansas belonged to Missouri, and people from the east had no right to settle in the territory and vote there. They said they came to the territory to elect a legislature to suit themselves, as the people of the territory and persons from the east and north wanted to elect a legislature that would not suit them. They said they had a right to make Kansas a slave state, because the people of the north had sent persons out to make it a free state. Some claimed that they had heard that the emigrant aid society had sent men out to be at the election, and they came to offset their votes; but the most of them made no such claim. Col. Young said he wanted the citizens to vote in order to give the election some show of fairness. The Missourians said there would be no difficulty if the citizens did not interfere with their voting, but they were determined to vote—peaceably, if they could, but vote any how. They said each one of them was prepared for eight rounds without loading, and would go the ninth round with the butcher-knife. Some of them said that by voting in the territory, they would deprive themselves of the right to vote in Missouri for twelve months afterward. The Missourians began to leave the afternoon of the day of election, though some did not go home until the next morning. In many cases, when a wagon-load had voted, they immediately started for home. On their