THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS
The foremost politician of the Northwest, in the early '50s, was Stephen
A. Douglas, United States senator from Illinois. He was a native of
Vermont, and had early gone West and pushed his fortunes with energy,
audacity, and shrewdness. He was an effective, popular speaker; and his
short and stout frame and large head had won for him the nickname of
"The Little Giant." He was a leader in the Democratic party, and a
prominent Presidential candidate, but never identified with any great
political principle or broad policy. He was chairman of the Senate
committee on Territories, and early in the session of 1853-4 he
introduced a bill for the organization of a vast section hitherto known
as "the Platte country," a part of the Louisiana purchase, lying next to
the western tier of States, and stretching from Indian Territory to
Canada; all of which was now to constitute the Territory of Nebraska,
or, as it was soon divided, the two Territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
This region had as yet been scarcely touched by permanent settlers, but
it was the next step in the great onward march toward the Pacific. It
lay north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, above which it had been
declared by the compromise act of 1820 slavery should never be extended.
Douglas incorporated in his "Kansas-Nebraska" bill, a clause declaring
that the prohibition of slavery north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, by the
act of 1820, had been "superseded by the principles of the legislation
of 1850," and was "inoperative and void." Later he added the
explanatory clause: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act,
not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States." On its face, this was a proposal
to withdraw the congressional prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
territory, and remand the question to the territorial population. But
the latent purpose to distinctly favor slavery was proved when Senator
Chase moved an additional clause: "Under which (the Constitution) the
people of the Territory, through their appropriate representatives, may,
if they see fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein"; and Douglas
and his followers, in defiance of consistency, instantly threw this out.
The meaning of the whole business was unmistakable; under the pretext of
"popular sovereignty,"--Douglas's favorite watchword--the bars were
thrown down and slavery was invited to enter.
The proposal took the country completely by surprise. The South was not
asking for any such advantage as was offered, but was prompt to accept
it. This of course Douglas had expected, and in this lay his personal
gain as a Presidential candidate. But he had utterly misjudged the
temper of the North. The general acquiescence in the compromise of 1850
might seem to indicate a weariness or indifference as to the slavery
question. But just as in 1820 and in 1850, again there sprung up a wide
and deep hostility to any extension of slavery, and now the old
restraints on that hostility were gone, and its sources were newly
filled. For now Clay and Webster were dead, and the case itself offered
no room for compromise; no offset was possible. And the anti-slavery
feeling had strengthened immensely throughout the North. Under the
stimulus of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, the inhumanity of the system had made
the deepest impression on the popular imagination and conscience. To
this system it was now proposed to throw open all the fair and fertile
Northwest, in effect from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The North
awoke like a giant from sleep. The old party organizations went down in
the shock; a new party came instantly to birth; and the last triumph of
slavery in Congress gave the signal for a six-years' campaign, ending in
the triumph of the Republicans and the appeal of the South to
revolution.
The debate in Congress was hot through the winter and spring of 1854. In
the Senate, Seward and Sumner and Chase had been reinforced by such
allies as Benjamin Wade of Ohio, Hamilton Fish of New York, Solomon Foot
of Vermont, and William P. Fessenden of Maine. The supporters of the
bill, with such leaders as Douglas and Cass from the North and Mason and
Benjamin from the South, proved finally to number three-fourths of the
Senate. In the House, party lines were completely broken, and the
division was almost equal,--the bill passed by 113 to 110. Its
supporters included all the Southern and just half of the Northern
Democrats, and two-thirds of the few Southern Whigs. Its opponents were
all the Northern and a third of the Southern Whigs, with half of the
Northern Democrats and the four Free-Soilers in the House.
The bill finally passed on the 25th of May, 1854, and there instantly
began a hot battle for the congressional election. On the very next
morning,--so Henry Wilson relates,--a meeting of about twenty members of
the House was held; among their leaders were Israel Washburn, Jr., of
Maine, and Edward Dickinson and Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts; and it
was agreed that the best hope lay not in the Whig organization, but in a
new party, for which the name "Republican" was chosen; and of which
this occasion might now be considered the birth and christening. It
came to its earliest maturity in Michigan, where the Whigs and Free
Soilers united in the new party and carried the autumn election. But in
most Northern States there was political confusion, heightened by the
sudden appearance of the "American" party. This was the political
development of the "Know-nothing" secret society, which came into
existence the year before, on the basis of the exclusion of recent
immigrants from political power. Its special animus was hostility to the
Irish Catholics, and in various parts of the country it had for a year
or two a mushroom growth. In Massachusetts, where the Whigs clung
obstinately to their tradition and their social prestige, and the
Republican party was at first only a continuance of the Free Soil, the
Know-nothings won in 1854 a sweeping victory, carrying the State by
almost two to one and electing all the members of Congress. That shrewd
politician, Henry Wilson, contributed to the result; was elected to the
United States Senate; and led the anti-slavery element which controlled
the American party in Massachusetts and a year or two later divided its
national organization. In other States, the term "anti-Nebraska" was the
basis of a temporary union, such as in Ohio had a majority of 70,000. In
New York the influence of Greeley, Seward, and Weed prolonged the Whig
organization as an anti-Nebraska party. The roster of the new Congress
was a jumble of Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Americans, and
anti-Nebraskans. But the general result was clear; Douglas's bill had
turned an overwhelming administration majority into a minority of the
popular vote; and the political revolution had carried the House in the
first engagement. The result crystallized a year later, when an
obstinate battle of many weeks for the House speakership ended in the
election of Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts.
The immediate practical effect of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to throw
the political destiny of those Territories into the hands of the future
settlers. There were men at the North who were prompt to see and seize
the opportunity. In February, 1854, three months before the bill became
law, the New England Emigrant Aid Society was incorporated in
Massachusetts. Its originator was Eli Thayer of Worcester, and among its
active promoters was Edward Everett Hale. In the following July it sent
to Kansas a colony of twenty-four, speedily followed by another of
seventy, which founded the town of Lawrence. Other colonies followed
from various Northern States, and other settlements were made. The
natural westward movement of an active population seeking new homes and
personal betterment was augmented and stimulated by a propaganda of
freedom. Whittier gave the colonists a marching song:
We cross the prairies as of old
Our fathers crossed the sea,
To make the West as they the East
The home of liberty.
A counter movement was started from the South. Missouri was its natural
base. But Missouri furnished the material and leadership for another
kind of crusade. The rough and lawless element of a border community was
brought out in its worst character by the appeal to champion the cause
of slavery. Men high in political life were ready to utilize such
forces. The first settlers of Lawrence, before they had time to raise
their houses, were visited by a ruffianly mob from Missouri, who tried
by threats and show of force to drive them from the Territory, but
failed. When in November the first election was held for Territorial
delegate to Congress, there was a systematic invasion by bands of
Missourians, who captured the polling-places and elected their
candidate by 3000 votes; though it was afterward proved that there were
only half that number of voters resident in Kansas.
In 1855 the first Territorial Legislature was elected by a similar
invasion of armed men, which chose the entire body. A foremost leader in
these operations was United States Senator Atchison of Missouri.
President Pierce's administration recognized the usurping faction. It
sent a succession of governors--Reeder, Shannon, Geary, Walker (the last
was sent by President Buchanan)--who, with the exception of the
incompetent and worthless Shannon, were by the inexorable facts of the
situation won to the side of the Free-State men, and accordingly lost
favor and their office. Meantime the usurping Legislature had enacted an
extraordinary code of laws. By these statutes, decoying a slave from his
master was punishable by death or hard labor for ten years; the
circulation of writings inciting to revolt was made a capital offense;
and the assertion by speech, writing, or the circulation of any book or
paper, that slavery was not lawful in the Territory, was punishable by
two years' hard labor.
It was not in the blood of free men to submit to such usurpation and
tyranny. In the autumn of 1855 the Free State party held a convention,
adopted a State constitution, and petitioned for admission to the Union.
They elected State officers with Charles S. Robinson as Governor. This
organization had really no legal standing; in form it was revolutionary.
But the Free State party were not only resolute, but adroit. They had no
mind to actively rebel against the United States Government, or come
into collision with its forces. Governor Robinson, their foremost
leader, was a man of New England birth, who had served a profitable
apprenticeship in the settlement of California, and learned a lesson
amid the complications of Federal authority and pioneer exigencies.
Counseled by him and men of like mind, the Free State party, while
maintaining the form of a State government, and disavowing the
Territorial Legislature as fraudulent, always deferred to any express
mandate of Federal authority. The Federal troops in the Territory were
commanded by Colonel Sumner, afterward a distinguished commander in the
Union army, and Governor Robinson (_The Kansas Conflict_), credits him
with a loyal and generally successful purpose to preserve order and
peace. In the mixed population there was much bad blood, many threats,
and occasional violence, but no general conflict. The "border ruffians"
were often insulting, and some murders were committed, but the Free
State men kept steadily on the defensive, though there was among them a
faction which favored more aggressive measures.
At last, a Free-State man was wantonly murdered; then an eye-witness of
the murder was got away on an apparently trumped-up charge; this was
followed by a bloodless rescue and the witness was carried off to
Lawrence. Then a sheriff with his posse went to Lawrence to arrest one
of the rescuers. In the night the sheriff was fired at and wounded. He
retreated; and immediately afterward a formidable demonstration was made
against the town of Lawrence. The situation was peculiar. Many of the
Free-State men were armed; contributions had been openly taken in the
North for this purpose, and "Sharpe's rifles" was one of the familiar
words of the day. But this policy was fixed--to disown and disobey the
authority of the Territorial Legislature, but never to oppose or resist
a United States official. In this way, says Robinson, the entire odium
of all oppressive proceedings was fixed on the Federal administration;
"the more outrages the people could get the government to perpetrate
upon them the more victories they would gain, and this simply because
the field of battle embraced the entire country, and the chief
victories at this stage were to be moral, political, and national."
The Territorial authorities were bent on breaking down, if possible, the
passive resistance of the Free-State men. Indictments were found, by a
Federal grand jury, against a number of members of the Free-State
government for "constructive treason," and they were put under arrest.
Indictments were also found against two printing offices in Lawrence,
and the principal hotel in the town. A large force of Missourians, led
by a United States marshal, advanced on the town. The inhabitants
protested, but agreed to respect the United States authority. The hotel
and the two printing offices were accordingly destroyed. A considerable
amount of lawless pillaging was done, and Governor Robinson's house was
burned. Then the force was withdrawn.
The Free-State leaders, as Robinson states, were in no wise cast down by
the course of events. Their actual losses had not been great; the
temporary confinement of a few of their men did not seriously disturb
them; and they considered that by their self-restraint and
non-resistance they had put their enemies thoroughly in the wrong, and
gained a most valuable vantage-ground for the ensuing Presidential and
congressional elections--an estimate which the result fully justified.
But in their party were some spirits to whom these peaceful tactics were
distasteful. Chief in this number was John Brown--little known to the
world at large till a later time. He and his family of sons had made
their homes in Kansas, impelled partly by the hostility to slavery which
in him was a master passion. He was a man personally upright and kindly,
of only moderate interest and capacity for the ordinary practical
affairs of life, given to brooding on public events and ideal causes,
and viewing them with a fanatic's narrowness and a fanatic's
absorption. He was a belated Puritan, and his natural place would have
been with Cromwell's Ironsides. His ideas were largely influenced by his
reading of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament. Of the modern
State and the duties of the modern citizen he had no rational idea.
Following the Old Testament analogy, he conceived of the slaveholders as
the enemies of God--like the Canaanites; and he came to imagine for
himself a mission like one of the Hebrew leaders. His favorite hero
seems to have been Gideon, and to assail and overcome the Midianites, a
handful against a host, became his dream.
How the peaceful tactics of the Free-State party suited his temper may
be easily guessed, and four days after the attack on Lawrence (which was
May 20, 1856), he acted on a plan of his own. At the head of a small
group of men, including two of his sons and a son-in-law, he went at
night down Pottawatomie creek, stopping at three houses. The men who
lived in them were well-known pro-slavery men; they seem to have been
rough characters; their most specific offense (according to Mr. Sanborn,
Brown's biographer and eulogist), was the driving from his home by
violent threats an inoffensive old man. John Brown and his party went
down the creek, called at one after the other of three houses; took five
men away from their wives and children; and deliberately shot one and
hacked the others to death with swords.
Mr. Sanborn's defense of this act is: "Brown long foresaw the deadly
conflict with the slave power which culminated in the Civil War, and was
eager to begin it, that it might be the sooner over." He begins his
chapter on "The Pottawatomie Executions": "The story of John Brown will
mean little to those who do not believe that God governs the world, and
that he makes his will known in advance to certain chosen men and
women, who perform it consciously or unconsciously. Of such prophetic
heaven-appointed men, John Brown was the most conspicuous in our time,
and his life must be construed in the light of that fact." He also
declares that the "execution" of these five men was an offset to the
killing of five Free-State men by various persons during the preceding
twelve-month, and that it was calculated to strike wholesome terror into
evil-doers. The ethics, theology, and statesmanship of this defense are
possible only to one bent on making Brown a hero at any cost.
The natural result of the Pottawatomie "executions,"--in which John
Brown's complicity was for a time concealed--was a series of
retaliations on both sides, and a state of affairs far more anarchic
than Kansas had known before. This lasted through the summer of 1856.
The general impression on the country was to strengthen the opposition
to the usurpation of the Territorial Legislature, and to the
administration which sustained it. In September there came a crisis.
Another and graver attack on Lawrence was threatened, and this time a
vigorous resistance was probable. But a new and able governor, John W.
Geary of Pennsylvania, had been dispatched by President Pierce, with
imperative instructions to pacify the Territory, as a pressing political
necessity. Geary met Robinson--the treason prisoners had already been
released--and as the two men had been near each other in the California
troubles and thus had the advantage of a mutual acquaintance, an
understanding was soon reached; Geary called off the dogs of war, and a
time of quiet followed.