All the federal offices in Kansas continue to be filled by the ring-leaders of the conspiracy against free-labor. Some of them are guilty directly in their own persons, and all are guilty indirectly, as conspirators and abettors, before and after the fact, of the murder of citizens whose only offense was a confession that they preferred that slavery should not be established in the territory. Let the reader not slight this statement. It would be a disgraceful and wicked thing for one to make such assertions without adequate ground of perfect conviction of their truth. If undeniable or if convincing testimony of their truth is readily within his reach, no man who respects himself, and who would live with a clear conscience, can fail to regard them gravely, anxiously, indignantly.

It is a simple, undeniable, indefensible fact, that the new President of the United States not merely still refrains from executing justice in Kansas, but [425] also that he has renewed and extended the countenance, patronage, honors, and friendship of the government to men who regard it as a merit and a matter of boasting that, for a political purpose, they have shot, in cold blood, and in the back, citizens of several, independent, sovereign free states, of whom they knew no harm but that they intended to vote against the establishment of slavery in territory belonging to those states, and of which they were residents and land-owners.

With a possible exception in the new secretary, there is no man now in Kansas recognized by our federal government, including its judicial branches, to have any official authority there, who is not a notorious plotter and probable pledged conspirator to prevent an honest action of the law of Squatter Sovereignty, as it is defined by the President and all its friends.

There are plenty of Free-state men from the North, capable and respectable, who have always belonged to the Democratic party, and who supported Mr. Buchanan in the hope that he would be just to Kansas, but not one such has been appointed to office.

The Hon. R. J. Walker has been selected to succeed Governor Geary, who resigned his office, either because, as his enemies say, he considered his life in danger from the Proslavery faction, or, as his friends say, because the President refused to sustain him in taking any measures inclining towards justice. Governor Walker has been recently known to the public chiefly for his efforts to have a railroad built from his state of Mississippi through a district at present occupied chiefly by non-slaveholding farmers in Texas, and thence a thousand miles across a desert country to that portion of California which is nearest to the cotton-soils of Sonora, and which it is thought might be made a slave state even without this assistance. He asserts that he desires to have the free-soil party in Kansas treated with fairness. He is the only one at present holding office for Kansas, who has ever made this profession. He remains yet in Washington, attending to some necessary private business: he is a business man, and was a subscriber for one million dollars’ worth of the stock of the Grand Southern California Railroad Company. Nevertheless, it is thought he may take a look at the territory in May.

Under a process of law, which the President recognizes as constitutional and valid, many good citizens, accused of resistance to the tyranny of an organization made by the Missourians for the purpose of establishing slavery in Kansas, have been torn from their families, and held in unwholesome confinement until some died and all were greatly impoverished. Of the many hundred boasting robbers and murderers of Free-state settlers, none yet are punished or even rebuked by the officers appointed to execute justice in the name of the majesty of the people of the confederate states.

The body of men who were last year appointed by the partisans of slavery for the purpose of preventing the success of any movements unfavorable to the establishment of slavery in the territory, and whose acts for that purpose are laws to the President of the United States and all those whom he appoints to [426] office, have recently pretended that they were willing to give an opportunity to the people of the territory to indicate, by a vote, what they demanded in their government. The instrument of this pretension—just now warmly commended by the Northern friends of Slavery extension, because it is the first act of this body which assumes to be intended to carry out their petted principle of Squatter Sovereignty—is the same which ex-Governor Geary vetoed on the ground of the absurd inconsistency of its provisions with its alleged purpose. It provides for a census of the citizens of the territory who were resident in it, on the 15th March, when no emigrants from the Free states would be likely to have recently become resident, but when, as it has now been made manifest, multitudes would have just come in by land from Missouri. From the census thus taken by officials, everyone of whom is a sworn enemy of freedom, a voting list is to be made up, which is to be revised by sworn friends of slavery. The territory is then to be formed into nineteen voting districts, the size, and shape, and relations of which, to each other, and to Missouri, are to be determined by men who are ashamed of nothing which has been done to subdue the free-soil party of the territory in the last two years. The number of delegates who are to represent the people of each district, is to be proportionate to the population returned by the special census. This proportion, not very difficult for a business man to ascertain, is to be declared by the Governor and Secretary, appointed by the President, and as this is the only duty connected with the election assigned to the governor, it is evident that the “Legislature” had some misgivings that the friends of Mr. Buchanan, in the Free states, were speaking the truth when they declared that he was disposed to do the fair thing with Kansas.

Finally, the votes are to be taken, not by ballot, but viva voce, by vocal declaration, so that the slavery party may not be voted against by one man who is not willing to make himself known as a free-soiler to the land-officers, who are to settle disputed claims—and there are comparatively few claims which are not disputed—these land-officers being all men committed to, and identified with, the conspiracy, to establish slavery on the soil of Kansas. The inspectors of election are to be men similarly pledged or sworn to disregard the rights of the free-soilers, and by such trusty hands, the vote is to be recorded, and returned. The whole process, in short, is in the hands of the same unscrupulous miscreants, who have been protected in every crime of which the reader has read in this book, by the present federal judiciary. It has been often reported, of late, that the scandalous laws enacted last year by the Legislature, established by Missouri in the territory, have been repealed under the conciliatory policy of the session of this year. Certain laws which it would have been impracticable to attempt to execute, have been repealed. It yet remains a legal felony for any man in the territory to order a book, such as this, for instance, to be sent to him. Anyone who offers to receive a free-soil newspaper, is liable to five years imprisonment. No conscientious free-soiler is eligible to sit upon a jury; and, in general, no practicable means of harassing, persecuting, [427] and silencing, those who would act effectively against the establishment of slavery in the territory, are left unprovided for.

And, yet, it is very plainly declared by Governor Walker, after long consultation with the President, pending his acceptance of the governorship, that he will attempt to carry out these laws, and force the people to accept this tyrannical usurpation of authority as a constitutional republican government. He believes, we are told, that it will be impossible to establish slavery in Kansas, because of its ungenial climate, (though it is milder than that of Virginia) therefore we are to believe that he will not lend himself to the schemes of his old friends, who have shrunk from nothing to conquer those who are opposed to its establishment, and if the foolish people from the North will only kiss the hand that smites them, and lie quietly under the heel that crushes them, he has confidence that he will restore peace and order in the territory.

What of their rights as men and as citizens? What of justice? What of squatter sovereignty? What of the honor and faith of the nation? Not one word.

The hope that constitutional liberty can be maintained in America, now rests on the integrity of the independent state governments in declaring, demanding, and securing the rights of their citizens.

It is impossible, if the policy of the new administration is to be judged from present symptoms, that the thinking citizens of each state in which men can yet afford to think freely, should not before long ask themselves:

“What are the delegated, and what the reserved rights of this state? Why should it remain in union with others for whose convenience and satisfaction its citizens are forced to relinquish, on common ground, their fundamental rights—rights, the free use of which is essential to the preservation of a decent and civilized state of society? Is it from a craven devotion to political tranquillity we allow these rights to be suppressed, systematically, formally, and year after year, and administration after administration, suppressed? Is it from pride in holding our state part of a Great Nation? Have we no patriotic duty but to keep men of our own party in office?

“What is the value of the federal constitution to us, if, in our territories, more than half our people can be deprived of the rights to which those who made the Constitution declared all men, everywhere, to be justly entitled, and which they fought a long, desperate, and bloody war to secure?”

It is the crime of a coward and not the wisdom of a good citizen to shut his eyes to the fact, that this Union is bound straight to disastrous shipwreck, if the man at the helm maintains his present course.

The prophetic mind of Jefferson, unconsciously but clearly described the process by which we have suffered ourselves to be brought to our present perilous condition.

Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up?

Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our [428] rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war, we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off before the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long; will be made heavier and heavier till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons, after he shall have entered.

I received your request concerning the German pamphlets too late to attend to the matter before to-morrow.

[432]

Please to consider that I am always glad to make myself of service to the Society in such matters, when there is an opportunity here.

The conversation with Colonel Ruggles which Dr. Webb was to report to you has been a cause of a good deal of concern in my mind. I should like to know, as soon as convenient to you, what has passed between you since.

In this conversation the Colonel seemed to take a little different position from that in which we had previously understood him to be standing. His property and the information he had previously given us I consider of comparatively little value, but the moral power of having his name associated with the operations of the Society I consider to be of great importance & I think it probable that he possesses information which in some future juncture would be of the greatest service to us. Chiefly, however, the reflections started by the conversation I had about it with Dr. Webb lead me to a point which I wish we had discussed more fully and with regard to which, now I have fully deliberated upon it, I should be relieved to know that you share my convictions.

I am very strong in the belief that an organization formed for the purpose of speculating in land, by or in connection with machinery for enlisting & facilitating the transit of emigrants, would do nearly every thing which we wish to have done, at least for some time to come, even though those engaged in it were entirely indifferent to the higher purpose of the N.E.E.A. Society. There would probably never be a question of yielding to the wishes of such men as Colonel Ruggles—men I mean whose objects were purely commercial—when it would not be discreet to do so (as far as the public could be informed) for the purpose of abating suspicion or misleading opposition to the purposes we should have in view. I want the matter to be so arranged that not only such “National Democrats” as Colonel R., but hot slave-holders in Texas, and especially very conservative merchants in New Orleans, may be made to work with us with all their might.

I have stated the point broadly in hopes that you will let me know how far you agree or differ with me, and also, so far as practicable, how it is likely to be regarded by the Society. I do not mean to ask you to define a plan at all—only to say how far this principle is likely to be regarded when the time comes for forming a plan.

Of course I depend upon convincing the outside members that the greatest liberality of dealing with the emigrants will in the end be the truest economy—or, if we do not succeed in convincing them, of coming so near it that they will be overruled by the majority, which I would take care to always have composed of those who will keep the political and benevolent purpose uppermost.

Oblige me, my dear doctor, by writing me fully and frankly on this subject. It is becoming evident to me that if I engage myself in this business at all it will have to be exclusively, with all my heart & strength. The happiness of my life will depend on the movement’s being very broadly and deeply successful. I [433] want the preliminary steps to be taken with great care and long-sightedness.

The more I contemplate it, the more momentous does the work we propose to engage in appear to me to be. I fully believe that only adequate wisdom is needed to make the duty we assume to ourselves as eventful as that of the Convention of 1776.

I confess to you I have a dread of Dr. Webb’s going through Neosho. His purpose will be sure in some way to leak out (he being known as the Secretary of the Society) and I consider it of the utmost importance that the views of the Society in that direction should not at present be suspected.

At least, if the Society is to operate openly and as, in the case of Kansas, with a hurrah, let it not do so without the fullest consideration, and when it begins, let it do so with a demonstration of real power—but if it is to operate silently by counter-mining the silent enemy, let the silence be absolute—from the beginning, absolute, absolute.

I pray the Doctor to be cautious to the last degree. (over)

My best regards to your wife.

Yours very truly