Address at a Reunion of the Pennsylvania Society of Atchison County,
held at Atchison, March 1st, 1878.
MR. PRESIDENT: The reunion of Pennsylvanians held in our city to-day is
a meeting to be commended, not alone because it affords opportunity for
acquaintanceship among citizens native of the same State, and promotes
social friendships among them, but because it is favorable to the
development of that individual and National sentiment which, while
reverencing birthplace and old home, has a still higher reverence and
love for the broad country which stretches from ocean to ocean. Whether
in Kansas or in Pennsylvania, the same brave old flag floats over us;
our new home and our native State are parts of the same good land; and
the Union, which takes in its wide, and strong, and loving embrace the
wheat-fields of Kansas and the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, is the
dearer to us because away off there near the Atlantic are the graves of
our forefathers, and here by the Missouri, half-way across the
Continent, are our homes, our wives, and our children.
Years ago, when the passions born of our Territorial troubles were yet
fiercely burning, I heard it said that Kansas was “the child of
Massachusetts.” The “Old Bay State,” it is true, contributed her full
quota towards moulding that public sentiment whose enthusiastic impulses
sent so many immigrants to people our prairies, and her firm friendship
for Free Kansas did very much to break down the intolerant domination of
slavery within our borders. The voice of Massachusetts, then as during
the Revolution of our forefathers, was eloquent and courageous, and her
action swift, vigorous and determined. But Sam and John Adams, a century
ago, had Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris, representatives of the
“Old Keystone State,” as their most efficient coadjutors, and so in the
struggle which made Kansas free, the zeal, the courage, and the
constancy of Pennsylvania’s sons were conspicuously illustrated.
If Kansas could properly be called the child of any State, she is the
daughter of Pennsylvania. But Kansas is really cosmopolitan. The blood
of all States and all Nations runs in her veins. The East and the West,
the North and the South, all sections and all nationalities have sent
their sons and daughters to swell her population and contribute to her
development. There is a wonderful aggregation of peoples in the
citizenship of this young Commonwealth; and out of these has grown a
remarkable community—a people homogeneous, yet diverse; combining the
sturdy independence, firm convictions and all-conquering energy and
industry of the North with the intense enthusiasm and fine courage of
the South. It is difficult to estimate what the result of such fusing of
bloods and temperaments will be in the future, but I believe it will
produce as strong, intelligent and vigorous a manhood as this Continent
or the world ever saw.
I do not intend, however, to discuss physiological questions. This is
Pennsylvania’s Day in our city, and I want to trace the connection of
Pennsylvania and her sons, as briefly as may be, with the history and
development, political and material, of Kansas. But first let me ask,
did any of you ever notice the striking similarity in the appearance of
the two States, Pennsylvania and Kansas, as shown upon the map? In size,
shape and general outlines, this resemblance is remarkable. In no other
two States of the Union is the conformation of outlines and appearance
so noticeable. Three sides of each, and the same three sides—north,
south and west—are squarely cut, while the eastern boundary of each is
irregular and formed mainly by the course of a river. Pennsylvania has a
territorial area of 46,000 square miles, and is 315 miles east and west
by 160 miles north and south. Kansas is a larger State, having a
territorial area of 81,000 square miles, and being 400 miles east and
west by 200 north and south. Both are longer, in about equal
proportions, than they are wide.
Perhaps the resemblance between the two States on the map of our
country—a resemblance as striking as that so often noticed in twin
children—is the birth-mark which stamps them as of one blood and family,
and accounts for the curious and interesting identification of
Pennsylvania’s sons with events in Kansas, during the whole of that
exciting epoch when this State was so prominent a figure in the history
of the Nation.
And the relations of the two States have been indeed curiously
interwoven—so curiously that I wonder the facts have not attracted more
general attention and remark. Less than a month after the bill
organizing the Territory of Kansas had become a law, Andrew H. Reeder,
of Pennsylvania, was appointed the first Governor. At the first election
ever held in the Territory, R. P. Flenniken, a Pennsylvanian, was the
Free-State candidate for Congress. The first Free-State newspaper ever
printed in Kansas was published and edited by George W. Brown, a
Pennsylvanian. The first great seal of Kansas was designed by Governor
Reeder, and engraved by Robert Lovett, a Philadelphia artisan. John L.
Dawson, a Pennsylvanian, was the second Governor appointed for Kansas,
but he declined. The first Free-State delegate convention ever held in
Kansas was presided over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian; and the
resolutions adopted, constituting the first platform of the Free-State
men, were mainly written by the deposed Governor Reeder. One of our
first Territorial Judges was J. M. Burrell, a Pennsylvanian. The
convention which set in motion the Free-State government organized under
the “Topeka Constitution” had for its President William Y. Roberts, a
Pennsylvanian; and at the election held that year, Andrew H. Reeder
received a majority of the votes cast as the Free-State candidate for
Congress. William Y. Roberts was elected Lieutenant-Governor under the
Topeka Constitution. Capt. George W. Bowman, a Pennsylvanian—long a
resident of this city—at the peril of his life and property took
Governor Reeder out of Kansas. Hon. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania,
introduced the first bill in Congress to admit Kansas into the Union
under the Topeka Constitution.
The third Governor of Kansas, succeeding Governor Shannon, was John W.
Geary, afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania. And he, like Governor
Reeder, espoused the cause of the Free-State men before he had been in
the Territory a week. He had been here only four days, in fact, when he
ordered the Lawrence Company of Capt. Sam’l Walker, a Pennsylvanian, and
one of the fighting leaders of the Free-State men, to be mustered into
the United States service, and issued a proclamation ordering the
invading Missourians out of Kansas. During the whole term of his service
he was an earnest opponent of the outrages and crimes which were
perpetrated upon the Free-State men. He was succeeded by Robert J.
Walker, a native of Pennsylvania, who soon espoused the cause of the
Free-State men; who induced them to take part in the election held in
October, 1857; and who threw out the returns from Oxford and Kickapoo
precincts and McGee county, thus giving the Free-State party control of
both branches of the Legislature, and sending a Free-State Delegate to
Congress.
The Grasshopper Falls Free-State Convention, held in August, 1857, at
which it was decided to vote at the ensuing election, under the promise
of Governor Walker that the vote should be free and fair, was presided
over by George W. Smith, a Pennsylvanian. On the assembling of the first
Free-State Legislature, in December, 1857, Cyrus K. Holliday, a
Pennsylvanian, was elected President _pro tem._ of the Council, and
George W. Deitzler, long a resident of Pennsylvania, and who came from
that State to Kansas, was chosen Speaker of the House.
December 21, 1857, at the election held for State officers under the
Lecompton Constitution, George W. Smith and William Y. Roberts, both
Pennsylvanians, and the candidates of the Free-State men, were elected
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively.
The last Territorial Legislature assembled in January, 1861, and it had
native Pennsylvanians for presiding officers in both branches, W. W.
Updegraff, President of the Council, and John W. Scott, Speaker of the
House. The bill admitting Kansas into the Union under the Wyandotte
Constitution was signed on the 29th of January, 1861, by James Buchanan,
of Pennsylvania. And when the first State Legislature assembled,
thirteen of its members and four of its officers, including the Speaker
of the House, W, W. Updegraff, were native Pennsylvanians.
The connection of the sons of Pennsylvania with affairs in Kansas,
political, military and industrial, has since that time been quite as
prominent and as honorable. But I have no time to trace such details
further. I can only add that of the officers commanding and the soldiers
forming our gallant Kansas regiments and companies during the war for
the Union, a very large proportion were native Pennsylvanians; of our
civil officers, a United States Senator, a Governor, a member of
Congress, a Lieutenant-Governor, three Superintendents of Public
Instruction, and a number of other State officials, have been
Pennsylvanians; and in every State Legislature there have been many
members who were natives of the “Old Keystone State.” And, as Owen Seip
would say, “the returns from Old Lehigh are not all in yet.”
The last accurate census of this State, taken in 1875, shows that 13,399
citizens of Kansas came from Pennsylvania. Only five States, Missouri,
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, furnished a larger number of
immigrants to Kansas. I think, however, that many more of our citizens
are natives of the old Keystone State. The figures I quote do not show
how many were born in each of the States, but only “where from to
Kansas.” Of the citizens of Atchison county, 640 emigrated from
Pennsylvania to Kansas. Only five States, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa
and New York, furnished a larger number. I have no doubt that quite a
large proportion of those who came from the Western States were
originally from Pennsylvania.
Kansas is a young State. It was only seventeen years old last month,
while Pennsylvania has rounded a full century of Statehood. Yet in 1542,
just 140 years before William Penn landed on the shores of the Delaware,
Francisco de Coronado, a Spanish commander of high rank, marched from
Mexico through Kansas to its northern boundary. He was seeking gold and
silver mines. He missed them. But he found, as he reported, “mighty
plains, full of crooked-backed oxen;” and he wrote that “the earth is
the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain; for while it is
very strong and black, it is well watered by brooks, springs and
rivers.” This old Spanish explorer gave a very accurate description of
the Kansas of to-day. But they didn’t receive his report in England,
which probably accounts for the fact that Penn landed on the shores of
the Delaware instead of sailing up the Mississippi and Missouri to
Kansas.
Kansas was embraced in the grant of land made by King James I, of
England, in the Virginia charter of 1609. Pennsylvania was embraced in
the grant of land made by Charles II, of England, to William Penn, in
1681. But the French discovered the Mississippi in 1682, and from that
date until 1763, Kansas was a French possession. It then passed into the
hands of Spain. In 1780 Benjamin Franklin, then in Paris, set on foot
negotiations for the purchase of Louisiana, which included Kansas. In
1800 the first Napoleon wrested Louisiana from Spain, and on the 30th of
April, 1803, sold it to the United States. Pennsylvania remained an
English colony until it became an American State.
A very old poetical legend explains how Pennsylvania came to be settled,
in the statement that that—
“Penn refused to pull his hat off
Before the King, and therefore sat off
Another country to light pat on.”
Reduced to sober prose, this doggerel expresses an idea that first
attracted public attention to Kansas, and for many years did much to
promote settlement in this State, _i. e._, love of freedom—religious,
political, and individual. This sentiment gave Kansas her first start in
the world, and she has kept her pace and her place ever since. In 1800
our old native State had a population of only 602,361, and in twenty
years this had increased to but little over a million. Kansas will far
surpass that growth within twenty years from 1875, when she had a
population of 531,156. We have over 700,000 now, and will have a round
million in 1880. This is a fast age. Kansas was organized as a Territory
less than a quarter of a century ago, and yet we have had nearly as many
Governors as Pennsylvania, mossed as she is with the antiquity of over
two centuries. As to State Constitutions, we can beat her, for
Pennsylvania has managed to get along with three in a century, while
Kansas had four before she got fairly into the Union, and I don’t know
how many amendments since. Only one railroad crosses the good old
Keystone State from East to West; Kansas has two passing from the
Missouri to the Colorado line, and a third nearly half-way across.
Atchison has more railroads than the great manufacturing city of
Pittsburgh, and is as great a “Railroad Center” as Philadelphia. They
make a man live there seven years before he can be Governor, yet they
sent us three who were sworn in before they ever saw Kansas.
Pennsylvania had nearly three million people in 1860, yet their
Legislature is not as big, numerically, as is ours. Probably the average
Kansan needs more laws to keep him within reasonable bounds than does
the average Pennsylvanian.
Pennsylvania is a great State, and no son of hers, wander wheresoever he
may, is ever ashamed to acknowledge his nativity. Virginia may be the
mother of States, but the “Old Keystone” is the _Pa._—especially of
Kansas, as I think I have shown. And the citizens of Kansas hailing from
Pennsylvania will never “go back on” their native State—nor to it,
perhaps, unless on a visit. Not that they love Pennsylvania less, but
Kansas more.
Looking back over the records of our eventful, often stormy past, and
contemplating the prosperous present and hopeful future of Kansas, it
has seemed to me that one great duty this State of ours has forgotten.
All nations, all States, have delighted to perpetuate, in the names they
have given to their cities or counties, the memory of those who, in
times of great trouble and danger, testified their devotion to the
welfare of the people by a courageous, steadfast, self-sacrificing
defense of their rights and liberties. It is one of the crowning glories
of the Old Keystone State, that of all the Governors who wielded the
executive power during the Territorial existence of Kansas there were
three, and only three, who did not consort with, or assist, or excuse
those who invaded our soil with armed force, murdered our people,
stuffed our ballot-boxes, burned our towns, and attempted to stifle free
speech and a free press, in order to blight this fair land with the
curse of human slavery—and these three were Pennsylvanians. And it is a
just reproach to Kansas that not one of our counties bears the name of
either of these three men—Reeder, Geary, or Walker. Kansas owes them
much. Their memory should be honored by every Kansan. They have all
passed away from the trials and troubles of this world. This State, the
rights and liberties of whose people they defended with such
self-sacrificing devotion and steadfast courage, cannot now reward them
with substantial gifts. But it can at least testify its respect for
their memory, and its gratitude for their splendid services in behalf of
its early pioneers, by perpetuating their names in the names of some of
its counties. And this it ought to do. Kansas will be justly open to the
reproach of having forgotten those to whom she is largely indebted until
three of her counties bear the honored names of Reeder, Geary, and
Walker—her only Federal Governors who held justice above partisanship,
who enriched the history of a dark and troubled period with the record
of official duties fairly, honestly and bravely discharged; who sternly
kept faith with the people, and so doing fought a great battle, not for
a single generation or a few thousand citizens of a sparsely-settled
Territory, but for all time and for the whole Republic.