Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/839

 Lawrence is the hot bed of all abolition movements in this Territory. It is the town established by the abolition societies of the east, and whilst there arc respectable people there, it is filled by a considerable number of mercenaries who are paid by abolition societies to perpetuate and diffuse agitation throughout Kansas, and prevent a peaceful settlement of this question. Having failed in inducing their own so-called Topeka State Legislature to organize this insurrection, Lawrence has commenced it herself, and, if not arrested, the rebellion will extend throughout the Territory."

And again: "In order to send this communication immediately by mail, I must close by assuring you that the spirit of rebellion pervades the great mass of the republican party of this Territory, instigated, as I entertain no doubt they are, by eastern societies, having in view results most disasterous to the government and to the Union; and that the continued presence of General Harney here is indispensable, as originally stipulated by me, with a large body of dragoons and several batteries."

On the 20th of July, 1857, General Lane, under the authority of the Topeka Convention, undertook, as Governor Walker informs us, "to organize the whole so-called free State party into volunteers, and to take the names of all who refuse enrollment. The professed object is to protect the polls, at the election in August, of the new insurgent Topeka Legislature."

"The object of taking the names of all who refuse enrollment is to terrify the free State conservatives into submission. This is proved by recent atrocities committed on such men by Topekaites. The speedy location of large bodies of regular troops here, with two batteries, is necessary. The Lawrence insurgents await the development of this new revolutionary military organization," &c. &c.

In the Governor's dispatch of July 27th, he says that "General Lane and his staff everywhere deny the authority of the territorial laws, and counsel a total disregard of these enactments."

Without making further quotations of a similar character from other dispatches of Governor Walker, it appears by a reference to Mr. Stanton's communication to General Cass, of the 9th of December last, that the "important step of calling the Legislature together was taken after I [he] had become satisfied that the election ordered by the convention on the 21st instant could not be conducted without collision and bloodshed." So intense was the disloyal feeling among the enemies of the government established by Congress, that an election which afforded them an opportunity, if in the majority, of making Kansas a free State, according to their own professional desire, could not be conducted without collision and bloodshed!

The truth is, that, up till the present moment, the enemies of the existing government still adhere to their Topeka revolutionary Constitution and government. The very first paragraph of the message of Governor Robinson, dated on the 7th of December, to the Topeka Legislature, now assembled at