History of the United States, v.2, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 7, Part 2: Contest for Speaker through The Civil War in Kansas

The House went immediately to work to elect a speaker. An animated contest began. It was soon evident that the disorganized party conditions which had prevailed since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act were nearing an end, and that the slavery question and the Kansas dispute were ranging men in Congress into two political divisions. Richardson was the caucus nominee of the Democrats. He received seventy-four votes on the first trial. His supporters stuck by their candidate so persistently that they became known as "the immortal seventy-four." The opposition scattered their votes, which, on the first calling of the roll, were distributed among no less than twenty candidates. Campbell, of Ohio, received the largest number. On the 7th of December he withdrew his name, and it was then patent that Banks, of Massachusetts, who had received votes from the first, could concentrate more of the anti-Nebraska strength than any other candidate.

Banks was a self-made and largely a self-educated man. He started to work as a bobbin-boy in a cotton-factory and became a good machinist. Yet he had less genius for
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1 See speech of Smith of Tennessee, House of Representatives, April 4th, 1856; Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 420.

mechanics than for rhetoric, an art in which he gained exercise by delivering addresses on temperance. He had also tried the stage, playing the part of Claude Melnotte before a Boston audience. He had been elected to the previous Congress as a Democrat, but had opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He was chosen to the present House of Representatives as a Know-nothing, but in the canvass of 1855 he had abandoned that party and had presided over the Republican convention of his State. He was sagacious in manner, impressive in speech, grave in council; but many of his political friends had a suspicion that he was not so wise as he looked.1 Greeley, who was at Washington as the correspondent of the Tribune, stood up for him from the first. His fitness for the post was universally conceded, and it seemed to the veteran editor that the imputation that the anti-Nebraska movement was a " Whig trick" would be effectually refuted by taking as the candidate for speaker a former Democrat.2

The continued ballotings, and the discussions to which they gave rise, resulted in showing that all the members of the House could be practically classified in three parties. Their strength was well represented by the typical vote for speaker, when there came to be but the three candidates, Banks, Richardson, and Fuller of Pennsylvania. The Republicans numbered one hundred and five, the Democrats seventy-four, the National American party forty.3 This did not take into account all the members of the House. But there were always absentees; and four anti-Nebraska men, who ought to have supported Banks, persistently threw away their votes by giving their voice for some other Republican. Banks finally reached one hundred and seven, which was his highest number. Fuller rarely had forty, but
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1 See Reminiscences of a Journalist, Congdon; Life of Samuel Bowles, Merriam.
2 Greeley to the New York Tribune, December 19th, 1855.
3 See resolution of Smith of Alabama, and remarks of Colfax, of Indiana, Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii. pp. 65, 85.

it was well understood that if the Democrats would come to him, he was certain of the votes of forty Americans.

As the position of all the members on the main question was not well defined or understood, the proceedings of a certain afternoon set apart for the catechism of the candidates were important, as indicating what precise opinions had been evolved out of the chaotic political conditions which had prevailed since the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act. The three candidates voted for the resolution which instituted the catechising. The answers of Richardson, Fuller, and Banks to questions which were propounded, and the adherence of their supporters, after they had defined their position, typified pretty nearly the division of sentiment in the country and prefigured the presidential contest.

Richardson planted himself upon the Douglas doctrine of popular sovereignty. Fuller maintained that as the territories were the common property of all the States, neither Congress nor a territorial legislature had the power to establish or prohibit slavery in the territories. When application for admission into the Union was made, the question should be decided by the State constitution. Since it was generally supposed that Fuller had been elected as an anti-Nebraska man, much surprise was occasioned when it was learned early in the session that he had veered to the South on the slavery issue. At first his votes came mostly from the North; but a month before the day of the catechism it was understood that he had satisfied the South on the Kansas question, and after that time his votes came mainly from the slave States.1 Apparently the supporters of Richardson and Fuller might together have elected the speaker, for they agreed on Kansas; but the Democrats had resolved in caucus to support no one but a Democrat, and would not go to Fuller, who was an American. The Fuller men could not consistently vote for Richardson, as the caucus which
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1 Greeley to the New York Tribune, December 11th, 1855. The day of catechism was January 12th, 1856.

nominated him had censured the Know-nothings.' Nor was it absolutely certain that the union of these two forces would elect a speaker. They did not constitute a majority of a full house; and if the line came to be sharply drawn between two men, one pro-slavery and the other anti-slavery, it was quite possible that the anti-slavery man would prevail.

Banks stated clearly that he was in favor of congressional prohibition of slavery in all the territories where such action was necessary to keep it out. In regard to Kansas and Nebraska, which was the question of the day, he desired that there should " be made good to the people of the United States the prohibition for which the Southern States contracted, and received a consideration. I am," he continued, "for the substantial restoration of the prohibition as it has existed since 1820." The opinion of Banks had already been generally understood, but his clear and eloquent statement gave him a commanding position before the House and the country. 2

The hearty response from the members and from the country was an index of the concentration of the public mind on the slavery question, which had come about since the fall elections of 1854. Seventy-five men who voted for Banks had been elected as Know-nothings or through Know-nothing influence; now most of them believed that the lesser should give place to the greater issue. "The majority of the Banks men," wrote Greeley to Charles A. Dana, "are now members of Know-nothing councils, and some twenty or thirty of them actually believe in the swindle. Half the Massachusetts delegation, two thirds that of Ohio, and nearly all that of Pennsylvania are Know-nothings this day. We shall get them gradually detached." 3
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1 See discussion of December 20th, 1855, Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii. p. 62.
2 Greeley to the New York Tribune, January 12th, 1856.
3 Letter of February 9th, 1856. Greeley was at Washington, a close observer, and occupying a position of influence. Many of his private letters to Dana, who was managing editor of the Tribune, were published in the New York Sun, May 19th, 1889, and are a valuable contribution to history.

A remark which Banks had made in a speech at Portland, Maine, during the preceding canvass, gave him trouble. He said that in certain circumstances he would be willing "to let the Union slide." The Union sentiment among Northern representatives was so strong that he now felt it necessary to declare his unalterable attachment to the Union and his willingness to fight for it, as he believed it was "the main prop of the liberties of the American people." The Union which he was willing to let slide was one whose chief object should be to maintain and propagate human slavery. 1

The contest for the election of speaker, which lasted two months, fixed the attention of the country and excited intense interest. The most entertaining historian of the struggle is Horace Greeley, who wrote a daily account for his journal. His private letters to Dana throw light upon his public communications, and together they form a connected narrative from the point of view of an earnest Republican. The private letters show his varying hopes and fears, and reflect the passing sentiment. "I am doing what I can for Banks," Greeley writes Dana, December 1st, 1855; "but he will not be speaker. His support of the Republican against the Know-nothing ticket this fall renders it impossible. If we elect anybody, it will be Pennington or Fuller. I fear the latter. Pennington is pretty fair, considering. He will try to twist himself into the proper shape, but I would greatly prefer one who had the natural crook. . . . The news from Kansas is helping us." 2 On January 8th, 1856, Greeley writes: "We calculate to elect Banks in the course of to-morrow night. No postponement on account of the weather."3 The Democrats in caucus had
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1 See discussion of December 24th and 29th, 1855, Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii. pp. 75,103.
2 That is the news of the Wakarusa war. New York Sun, May 19th, 1889.
3 Greeley to Dana, ibid.

resolved that they would vote against any adjournment until a speaker was elected, but the project of a continuous session did not alarm the Republicans. The 9th of January was an exciting day, and the night session stormy; but no result was reached.1 At half-past eight on the morning of the 10th, the House, through sheer weariness, adjourned. After the night session, Greeley is hopeful, and writes Dana: "We shall elect Banks yet, now you see if we do not. We made a good push towards it last night."2 One week later Greeley is discouraged and writes to the Tribune: "There is no anti-Nebraska majority, . . . and that is the reason why there is no organization. The people meant to choose an anti-Nebraska House and thought they had done so; but they were deceived and betrayed.3 The same day he writes his confidential friend: "I shall see these treacherous scoundrels through the speakership, if I am allowed to live long enough, at all events. Our plans are defeated and our hopes frustrated from day to day by perpetual treacheries on our own side." 4

The days went by. The calling of the roll went on until one hundred and twenty-seven ballots had been taken and many propositions voted upon which had in view the organization of the House. On the morning of January 28th, Greeley wrote Dana: "We hope to elect Banks to-day." But his hopes were dashed; and in the afternoon, when the House had adjourned, he charges the failure upon "thirty double-dyed traitors, ten of them voting against us, and the other twenty cursing me because they cannot do likewise."5

Early in the session, Alexander Stephens had bewailed the inconsistency of his fellow-representatives. "If men were reliable creatures," he wrote his brother, "I should say" Banks never can be elected. "But my observation
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1 Greeley to New York Tribune, January 9th.
2 Greeley to Dana, January 10th, 1856, New York Sun, May 19th, 1889.
3 January 17th, 1856.
4 Greeley to Dana, January 17th, 1856.
5 Idem, January 28th, 1856.

has taught me that very little confidence is to be placed on what they say as to what they will do."1

Richardson withdrew his name, and the Democrats transferred their strength to Orr, of South Carolina. But he was no more successful than Richardson in attracting votes from the Southern Americans, so he also retired from the contest. On the 1st of February a resolution was offered declaring that Aiken, of South Carolina, should be elected speaker. This received 103 affirmative to 110 negative votes. Aiken was a man of sterling character, personally very popular, and, although he had the name of owning more slaves than any one in the country and was a devout disciple of Calhoun, he was more acceptable to the Southern Know-nothings than Orr and Richardson. When the House adjourned on this afternoon, the Democrats were elated and some of the Republicans depressed. It was certain that the resolution—already many times offered and always voted down—providing that a plurality should elect, would on the morrow prevail. This would, it was supposed, insure the election of Aiken. At the levee that evening, the President warmly congratulated him on his probable success. A dozen anti-Nebraska caucuses were held, where the weak-hearted offered timorous counsels, but where the majority felt confident. It was determined to stand by Banks at all hazards.

Soon after the reading of the journal on February 2d, Smith, a Democrat of Tennessee, offered a resolution which provided that the House should proceed immediately to vote for a speaker; if, after three votes had been taken, no candidate had received a majority, then on the fourth calling of the roll the member receiving the largest number of votes should be declared elected speaker. Smith expected that the adoption of this rule would result in the choice of Aiken. The resolution was carried by 113 yeas to 104 nays. All the Republicans voted for it, as
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1 December 11th, 1855, Life of Stephens, Johnston and Browne, p. 300.

they had persistently favored the plan of having a plurality elect. Twelve Democrats joined them. The end of the protracted contest was now in sight, and the interest was overmastering. The three votes were taken without result. The House then proceeded to vote the one hundred and thirty-third time, the fourth and last under the plurality rule. As the roll was called, the anxiety was without bounds. The Americans who clung to Fuller were besought to save the Union by voting for Aiken. The votes were recorded; there remained the announcement of the result. The confusion was great. All the members were standing, and trying vainly to be heard in expostulation or appeal. One member shouted out a motion to adjourn, which was quickly declared out of order by the presiding officer. John W. Forney, the clerk of the former House, a strong Democrat, until recently one of the editors of the Washington Union, had presided over the House during the trying situation of the past two months with impartiality and admirable skill. The time had come for a prompt decision and emphatic statement. The precedent was to have a resolution adopted stating that the member who had the largest number of votes should be declared speaker. But Forney was afraid that another vote, in the wild excitement prevailing, might overturn the result reached. He and the tellers, who represented both parties, quickly consulted together, and they decided to declare Banks elected. The Republican teller gained the attention of the House and said: "Gentlemen, the following is the result of the one hundred and thirty-third vote: Banks, 103; Aiken, 100; Fuller, 6; Campbell,4; Wells, 1; therefore, according to the resolution which was adopted this day, Nathaniel P. Banks is declared speaker of the House of Representatives for the Thirty-fourth Congress." The pent-up emotion of many weeks broke forth in wild tumult. The hall resounded with cheers, which the vanquished tried to overpower with hisses. When order was partially restored, an American from Kentucky protested that, as the precedent of 1849 had not been followed, Banks had not been chosen speaker. This protest occasioned an exhibition of feeling which showed that Southern chivalry was not all a sham. Clingman, Aiken, and other Southern Democrats rebuked the cavillers and maintained that Banks had been fairly and legally chosen. A resolution to that effect was adopted by an overwhelming vote, and Banks was escorted to the chair.1

The day after the election, Greeley wrote Dana: "Of course you understand that the election of Banks was 'fixed' before the House met yesterday morning. He would have had three votes more if necessary, perhaps five. There has been a great deal of science displayed in the premises, and all manner of negotiations. A genuine history of this election would beat any novel in interest.'" Two weeks later, Greeley is still full of the transaction, and writes Dana that if he sees a certain man in New York soon, " make him give you a private account of the Banks election—inside view. He may be as great a rascal as he is represented; if so, I begin to see the utility of rascals in the general economy of things. Banks would never have been elected without him. He can tell you a story as interesting as 'The Arabian Nights,' and a great deal truer. He has done more, and incurred more odium, to elect Banks than would have been involved in beating ten speakers." 3 The latent influences, whatever they may have been, had only to do with a few floating votes. Most of the members
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1 In this account, besides the Congressional Globe, I have consulted Greeley's letters to the New York Tribune; his private letters to Dana; Simonton's letters to the New York Times; Forney's Anecdotes of Public Men, vol. i.; Life of A. H. Stephens, Johnston and Browne; see also speech of J. A. Smith, of Tennessee, House of Representatives, April 4th.
2 Washington, February 3d, 1856, New York Sun, May 19th, 1889.
3 Washington, February 16th, ibid. In H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 702, bribery in the election of Banks as speaker is alluded to.

who voted for Banks did so for the reason that John Sherman, of Ohio, gave. I understand Banks to take this position, Sherman said before the day of the catechism, "that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was an act of great dishonor, and that under no circumstances whatever will he —if he have the power—allow the institution of human slavery to derive benefit from that repeal."1 For the members of whom Sherman was a type, and for the Republicans of the Northern States, the election of Banks was a victory of freedom over slavery. It was even asserted that it was the first victory which had been gained within the memory of men living.2 It was, moreover, a triumph of the young Republican party. Friend and foe had repeatedly on the floor of the House denominated all the supporters of Banks as Republicans. The Democrats chafed at the adoption of that name. The Republican party of which Jefferson was the father had been the forerunner of their own, and to use that designation seemed like stealing their thunder. To distinguish, therefore, the modern party from the ancient, they called it the Black Republican; and they maintained that the adjective was appropriate, as the Banks men were devoted to the cause of the negro. Yet if the Democrats were fond of appealing to the name of Jefferson, the Republicans were fonder still of referring to his declared principles. The discussion that was held at intervals between the votes for speaker turned almost entirely on some phase of the slavery question. Even the American movement was treated in its relation to the absorbing issue. Humphrey Marshall, a Kentucky Know-nothing, said that he found no American party in Washington; that the engrossing subject was the negro.3 The long contest was marked by the absence of bitterness; good temper prevailed, and the struggle was conducted with dignity and forbearance. This was not due so much to the shadow of the serious situation which hung
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1 January 9th.
2 New York Tribune, February 6th.
3 Greeley to the New York Tribune, December 5th, 1855.

over the House as it was to the good-humor of the members. The dissolution of the Union was freely talked of, but the Southern threats were not considered serious. The declaration of a Virginia Hotspur, that "if you restore the Missouri Compromise or repeal the Fugitive Slave law, this Union will be dissolved," was received with "laughter and cries of 'Oh, no!'" The night session, though exciting, was characterized by no violence of speech or action. The only outrageous act of the whole contest was the assault upon Horace Greeley in the streets of Washington by Rust, a member of Congress from Arkansas, on account of a severe stricture in the Tribune for a resolution he had introduced.

The election of Banks was an important event for a party whose organization dated back but one and a half years. It was the triumph of a section; all his supporters came from the North. It gave additional point to the Republican National convention which had been called by the chairmen of the Republican State committees of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Delegates from twenty-three States assembled at Pittsburgh on the 22d of February. No men were more prominent in the deliberations than the editors of the two leading Republican journals. Greeley counselled extreme caution. "Not only our acts but our words," he said, "should indicate an absence of ill-will towards the South." The American question must be treated "with prudence and forbearance. There are hundreds of whole-hearted Republicans in the American ranks. But the American as a National organization is not friendly to us."1 Henry J. Raymond wrote the address which was unanimously adopted by the convention.2 The author related the
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1 Speech at the convention.
2 One gets a glimpse of the rivalry between these journalists in Greeley's letter to Dana of March 2d. "Have we got to surrender a page of next Weekly to Raymond's bore of an address? The man who could inflict six columns on a long-suffering public, on such an occasion, cannot possibly know enough to write an address. Alas for Wilson's glorious speech!" The Weekly Tribune of March 8th published the address, and said editorially: "We give to-day the very able and comprehensive address of the Republican convention."

history of slavery aggression, and foreshadowed what might be the further conquests of the slave power, unless it received a check. The address closed with a declaration of the "object for which we unite in political action:

"1. We demand, and shall attempt to secure, the repeal of all laws which allow the introduction of slavery into territories once consecrated to freedom, and will resist by every constitutional means the existence of slavery in any of the territories of the United States.

"2. We will support by every lawful means our brethren in Kansas," and we are "in favor of the immediate admission of Kansas as a free and independent State."

"3. It is a leading purpose of our organization to oppose and overthrow the present national administration."1

The anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, the 17th of June, was selected as the day for holding a national convention at Philadelphia to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President. A national committee was appointed composed of one member from each free State, one each from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and one from the District of Columbia. Governor Robinson, as the representative of Kansas, was added to the committee.

On the same day that the Republicans assembled at Pittsburgh (February 22d) the Americans came together at Philadelphia, and nominated Millard Fillmore for President and Donelson, of Tennessee, for Vice-President. The platform had been adopted at the National Council of Know-nothings which had been in session the three days immediately previous. On the slavery question it was non-committal. Northern delegates tried to get a positive expression of the
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1 This address is printed in full in Raymond and New York Journalism, Maverick.

convention on the subject, and, failing in that, refused to take part in the nominations. Seventy-one delegates withdrew and issued a call for a convention in June.

The President was annoyed at the long delay in the organization of the House of Representatives. His message was ready, and in it were matters of importance which he wished to communicate to Congress and the country. Our relations with England were critical. The chronic discussion regarding the construction of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had reached the point of a wide and irreconcilable difference between the two governments. A more serious trouble was the persistence by British officers in the enlistment of recruits in the United States for their army engaged in the Crimean war, and the fact that no reparation for the wrong had been obtained from the English government. A British fleet had been sent to our coasts, and the inflammatory articles as to its object which had appeared in the London Times, Globe, and Chronicle had caused excitement in England and the United States. Buchanan in a private letter admitted that" the aspect of affairs between the two countries had now become squally."1 Lord Palmerston was prime minister. With the message, the President intended to communicate the correspondence in reference to the Central-American dispute, and included in it was a letter of Palmerston written in 1849, when he held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. The publication of this in England would, the President thought, have the effect of overthrowing the Palmerston ministry, and it was the opinion in the State department that the Central-American question could be easily settled with any other premier.2 The precedent was against sending the message to Congress until the House was organized, but Stephens and Cobb advised the President
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1 Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 154; see also Harper's Magazine, letter of October 26th, 1855.
2 See Life of Stephens, Johnston and Browne, p. 300; Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 162.

to transmit it. The Senate would certainly receive it, and it would thus be given to the country. "At first," Stephens relates," he did not seem to take to it at all: he was timid and shy; but after a while said he would think of it and consult his cabinet. The thing was so unprecedented he was afraid of it." The President advised with Toombs, who agreed with Stephens and Cobb. Stephens "found a precedent in the British Parliament when the House failed to elect a speaker for fourteen days, and the crown communicated with them by message." Jefferson's " Manual," which cited the precedent, was immediately sent to the President.1 The next day was the 31st of December, 1855, and the message was transmitted to Congress. The House would not hear it, but it was read in the Senate. It was published in the newspapers, as was also the diplomatic correspondence relating to the Central-American question. The publication of the Palmerston letter did not have the result which the President anticipated. Palmerston remained in power two years longer; but the disclosure of the correspondence affected English public opinion in our favor, and Buchanan thought that the danger of a rupture was over. 2

The President had more words in his message on the slavery question than on the controversy with England. He went into a labored argument drawn from history, which was not without force, but he looked at affairs from the Southern point of view. The opposition press said that it was his bid for Southern support in the next Democratic national convention, for he was an avowed candidate.

He disposed of Kansas in a short paragraph: "In the territory of Kansas," he said, "there have been acts prejudicial to good order, but as yet none have occurred under circumstances to justify the interposition of the federal executive." Senator Hale criticised the President for the slight heed he
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1 Letter of Alex. Stephens to his brother, December 30th, 1855, Johnston and Browne, p. 300.
2 Letter of Buchanan, January 25th, 1856, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 162.

paid to the matter. "The President has a great deal to say about Central America," the senator declared, "as if that were the engrossing subject with the people at this time. I tell the President that there is a central place in the United States called Kansas, about which the people of this country are thinking vastly more at this time than they are about Central America."1

It is probable, however, that no man in the country was thinking more about Kansas than Franklin Pierce. The message, although dated December 31st, was probably written by the first of the month, when the situation looked less serious than now, for the reports of the Wakarusa war had not then been received. The President was undoubtedly in a strait between two ways; but by the 24th of January, the day on which he sent his special message to Congress, it was known that Jefferson Davis, who was an open friend of the Missouri party, had prevailed. The President maintained that the emigrant-aid companies were largely responsible for the troubles which had occurred; their purposes, proclaimed through the press, were extremely offensive and irritating to the people of Missouri; yet their operations were "far from justifying the illegal and reprehensible coun ter-movements which ensued." The President then proceeded to plant himself squarely on the side of the Missourians. "Whatever irregularities may have occurred in the elections," he said," it seems too late now to raise that question. At all events, it is a question as to which, neither now nor at any previous time, has the least possible legal authority been possessed by the President of the United States. For all present purposes the legislative body thus constituted and elected was the legitimate assembly of the territory." The acts of the free-State people were without law. "In fact, what has been done is of revolutionary character. It is avowedly so in motive, and in aim as respects the local law of the territory. It will become treasonable
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1 In the Senate, January 3d.

insurrection if it reach the length of organized resistance by force to the fundamental or any other federal law, and to the authority of the general government. In such an event, the path of duty for the Executive is plain." The President surrounded his meaning with verbiage and limitations and provisos that had a tinge of fairness; but beyond all, it appeared plainly that his intention was to sustain the United States marshal in the enforcement of federal law, and the territorial authorities in the enforcement of the territorial laws, and to place at their disposal United States soldiers in order to make effective their efforts.

He recommended that Congress should pass an enabling act for the admission of Kansas as a State, when it should have sufficient population.

The reasoning of the President was worthy of a quibbling lawyer, but not of the chief magistrate. It is true that the Topeka movement had not legal authorization; the Topeka constitutional convention was but a party mass-meeting, but it had nevertheless a moral backing in that it undoubtedly represented the will of a majority of actual settlers. The territorial legislature was in form legal; a majority of the members had received certificates in proper shape from Reeder, who was then governor; but it is equally true that the legislature was the creature of a fraud. Franklin Pierce, in virtue of his position, should have looked on both sides. There was no great difficulty in arriving at the facts, and a calm and fair consideration of them pointed to an unerring decision. One government lacked moral, the other legal, authority. Both should have been set aside and a new government instituted under regulations that should give a fair expression to the voice of the people. For this the power of Congress was ample. The President should have recommended that course and maintained order in the territory until Congress could mature a policy.1
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1 This view was ably advocated in an editorial of the New York Times of January 28th.

Before the special message reached Kansas, Robinson and Lane, an associate in the free-State movement, called upon the President for assistance. They likewise appealed for help to the governors of New York, Rhode Island, and Ohio, who formally transmitted the communication to their respective legislatures. Chase did more. He sent to the Ohio legislature a message of warm sympathy, and asked that the law-makers bring to bear upon Congress the usual influences on behalf of the free-State people. He further suggested that they might officially commend the cause of Kansas to the liberal contributions of their constituents.

On the 11th of February, the President issued a proclamation relating to Kansas. Couched in the usual formal and commanding language of such sovereign documents, and affecting to condemn impartially lawless acts, whether performed by Missourians or free-State men, there was no difference of opinion as to its meaning. Every one knew that it was directed against the Topeka movement, and that the intent was to set firmly on the side of the territorial legislature and pro-slavery party the authority and power of the national government. The United States troops at Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley were placed at the requisition of Governor Shannon, but he was cautioned not to call upon them unless absolutely necessary to enforce the laws and preserve the peace, and, before the soldiers were employed on any occasion, he was enjoined to have the President's proclamation publicly read. The course of the President was satisfactory to the South, and it was approved by the Northern Democrats in Congress and by the Northern Democratic press. The Boston journal of the administration gave the key-note to those who had to stand the brunt of the argument in a community where sympathy with the free-State settlers was widespread and irresistible. "Here is the issue," it declared: "on the one side are Robinson and his organization in Kansas—Chase and the madcaps who go with him in his overt act of treason out of Kansas —the whole band who advocate the sending of Sharpe's rifles to Kansas . . . and on the other side are the constituted authorities of the United States."1

The Democratic majority1 in the Senate did not take hold of the matter at once; they waited for Douglas, their leader, to give expression to their views, but he was detained from Washington by illness. As soon, however, as he arrived, he set himself diligently to work. That part of the annual message which related to Kansas, and also the special message, had been referred to the committee on territories. On the 12th of March, Douglas made a report in which he discussed the question thoroughly. The Emigrant-Aid Company was the scape-goat, and its operations were made to do great service in his argument. In his view the territorial legislature was a legal body, and its acts were lawful; the Topeka movement repudiated the laws of the territorial government, and was in defiance of the authority of Congress. Three senators joined with Douglas in the majority report; one only, Senator Collamer, of Vermont, dissented. The Topeka movement, Collamer averred, had been entered into because the free-State people saw no other source of relief; "thus far this effort for redress is peaceful, constitutional, and right." The true remedy is the entire repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska act. "But," he continued, "if Congress insist on proceeding with the experiment, then declare all the action by this spurious foreign legislative assembly utterly inoperative and void, and direct a reorganization, providing proper safeguard for legal voting and against foreign force." Yet there was another way to end the trouble, and that was to admit Kansas as a free State under the Topeka Constitution.

The two reports were read to the Senate by their
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1 Boston Post, February 15th. The New York Journal of Commerce, the Albany Argus, and Philadelphia Pennsylvanian take similar ground.
2 The Senate was composed of thirty-four administration Democrats, thirteen Republicans, twelve Whigs or Americans, all but one of whom were from the slave States.

authors. When Collamer had finished, Sumner rose and said: "In the report of the majority the true issue is smothered; in that of the minority, the true issue stands forth as a pillar of fire to guide the country. ... I have no desire to precipitate the debate on this important question, under which the country already shakes from side to side, and which threatens to scatter from its folds civil war." . . . But I must repel "at once, distinctly and unequivocally, the assault which has been made upon the Emigrant-Aid Company of Massachusetts. That company has done nothing for which it can be condemned under the laws and Constitution of the land. These it has not offended in letter or spirit; not in the slightest letter or in the remotest spirit. It is true, it has sent men to Kansas; and had it not a right to send them? It is true, I trust, that its agents love freedom and hate slavery. And have they not a right to do so? Their offence has this extent, and nothing more."

In the calmer light of historical disquisition, we may approve every word of this indignant burst of Sumner.

Meanwhile the House had resolved by 101 yeas to 100 nays that the Missouri Compromise ought to be restored.1 Whitfield had taken his seat as delegate from Kansas without objection; but a memorial from Reeder had been presented, in which he claimed the place. By the middle of February, Greeley was convinced that the session would be barren of legislative results. He wrote Dana: "We cannot (I fear) admit Reeder; we cannot admit Kansas as a State; we can only make issues on which to go to the people at the Presidential election."' When the matter seemed coming to a head in the Senate, Greeley thought it wise to moderate the zeal of his associates, and wrote Dana: "Do not let your folks write more savagely on the Kansas question than I do. I am fiery enough." 3
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1 On January 26th, before the election of the speaker.
2 February 16th, New York Sun, May 19th, 1889.
3 In March, ibid.

On the 19th of March, the House took a step which, of the whole session, turned out to be its most valuable action relating to Kansas affairs. It resolved that the speaker should appoint a committee of three to inquire into the trouble in Kansas generally, and particularly into the frauds attempted or practised at any of the elections. Ample powers were furnished, and protection, if necessary, was requested from the President. It is, wrote Greeley to the Tribune, "the best day's work of the session except that of electing Banks."' William A. Howard of Michigan, John Sherman of Ohio, Republicans, and Mordecai Oliver, Democrat, of Missouri, were appointed the committee.

On the next day, Douglas addressed the Senate in support of the bill which he had drawn to embody the views that he had laid down in his report. It provided that when Kansas "shall contain 93,420 inhabitants (that being the present ratio for a member of Congress) a convention may be called by the legislature of the territory to form a constitution and State government;" six months' residence in the territory was a necessary qualification for voters.

The graphic pen of Harriet Beecher Stowe has given a description of Douglas as he appeared this winter, and she has vividly characterized his manner of argument. She did not hear the speech of March 20th, but she listened to a subsequent debate on the memorial of the self-styled free-State legislature of Kansas, which served as the text for this remarkable characterization. The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the society in which she moved, scorned Douglas. Her soul was bound up in the anti-slavery cause, and one might have expected from her a diatribe, only differing in force from those which fellow New England writers were publishing on every opportunity. But she was almost as much artist as abolitionist; and from the Senate gallery she looked upon the scene with the eye of an observer and student of character. In her description
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1 Letter of March 19th.

there is much of penetration. Severe as it is, one detects the striking impression made on the sensitive woman of genius by the man who was an intellectual giant.

"This Douglas," Mrs. Stowe writes, " is the very ideal of vitality. Short, broad, and thick-set, every inch of him has its own alertness and motion. He has a good head and face, thick black hair, heavy black brows and a keen eye. His figure would be an unfortunate one were it not for the animation which constantly pervades it; as it is, it rather gives poignancy to his peculiar appearance; he has a small, handsome hand, moreover, and a graceful as well as forcible mode of using it—a point speakers do not always understand. .. . He has two requisites of a debater—a melodious voice and a clear, sharply defined enunciation. . . . His forte in debating is his power of mystifying the point. With the most off-hand assured airs in the world, and a certain appearance of honest superiority, like one who has a regard for you and wishes to set you right on one or two little matters, he proceeds to set up some point which is not that in question, but only a family connection of it, and this point he attacks with the very best of logic and language; he charges upon it horse and foot, runs it down, tramples it in the dust, and then turns upon you with—' Sir, there is your argument! Did not I tell you so? You see it is all stuff;' and if you have allowed yourself to be so dazzled by his quickness as to forget that the routed point is not, after all, the one in question, you suppose all is over with it. Moreover, he contrives to mingle up so many stinging allusions to so many piquant personalities that by the time he has done his mystification a dozen others are ready and burning to spring on their feet to repel some direct or indirect attack, all equally wide of the point. His speeches, instead of being like an arrow sent at a mark, resemble rather a bomb which hits nothing in particular, but bursts and sends red-hot nails in every direction. . . . Douglas moves about the house," she continues, as the recognized leader of the Southern men. "It is a merciful providence that with
all his alertness and adroitness, all his quick-sighted keenness, Douglas is not witty—that might have made him too irresistible a demagogue for the liberties of our laughter loving people, to whose weaknesses he is altogether too well adapted now."1

Much of Douglas's speech of March 20th has the peculiarity of reasoning which Mrs. Stowe describes. It was, however, the strong legal argument which the position of the President and the Democrats required. The contrast between the legal territorial legislature and the "revolutionary, rebellious, and insurrectionary" Topeka movement was stated with overmastering force. Under the senator's magic power, one seemed to see the border ruffians, whose implements of civilization were the revolver, the bowie knife, and the bottle of whiskey, in the character of champions of law and order; while the New England emigrants, who went with Bibles, books containing the masterpieces of our literature, the implements of husbandry, and steam engines and boilers,2 were "daring and defiant revolutionists. The whole responsibility of all the disturbances in Kansas," Douglas declared, in a culminating stroke of inconsequence, "rests upon the Massachusetts Emigrant-Aid Company and its affiliated societies."

Greeley appreciated the force of Douglas's argument. It was " a fluent and practised lawyer's plea at bar;... its delivery was set off by an impressive, emphatic manner," he wrote. He used more than two columns of his journal to refute the speech, but he could not forbear from paying the senator's manner a high compliment. "Douglas," he wrote, "has one point of superiority as a speaker over most of his contemporaries in Congress—he never hurries through or slurs over his sentences, but wisely assumes that what he thinks it worth his while to say, he may justifiably take time to say well; and that if it be fit that
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1 Letter from Washington, New York Independent, May 1st.
2 See Kansas Crusade, Thayer, p. 187.

he should speak, it is fit also that his peers should hear and understand."1

The Kansas question afforded the Republican senators a great opportunity to define their position and put in concrete shape their principles before the country. All the troubles, every outrage in Kansas, pointed the argument in favor of congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories. Hale, of New Hampshire, made, in Greeley's opinion, the best speech of his life.2 The new Republican senators from Illinois and Iowa, Trumbull and Harlan, made their mark. Wade's effort was called by Simonton "a magnificent invective.”3 Wilson made a stirring and effective speech, which found favor generally with the Republicans; ten thousand copies were subscribed for by members of the House before he had finished speaking.4 It was gall and wormwood to the Southerners, and many threats of personal violence were made against him.5 Collamer made a fine legal argument, and Greeley, who, since dissolving the firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, could not treat the New York senator fairly, wrote privately to Dana: "Collamer's speech is better than Seward's, in my humble judgment." 6 The truth is not always told in confidential correspondence. The personal feeling of Greeley found vent in communing with his friend, but he expressed the opinion of the country and the judgment of the historian when he wrote to his journal that Seward's speech was "the great argument," and stood "unsurpassed in its political philosophy."7 Simonton had heard every speech which Seward had ever made in the Senate, but he was sure that this overtopped
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1 Greeley to New York Tribune, March 20th.
2 Ibid., February 28th.
3 Simonton to New York Times, April 19th.
4 Greeley to New York Tribune, February 19th.
5 Simonton to New York Times, February 20th.
6 Letter of April 7th.
7 Greeley to New York Tribune, April 9th.

them all.1 The praise was merited. The words were those of a great statesman. The thoughtful and reading men of the North could not despair of the republic when their views found such masterly expression in the Senate.

The Republicans, and those inclined in that direction, of every part of the country, were great readers. Men who were wavering needed conviction; men, firm in the faith, needed strong arguments with which they might convince the wavering. Young men who were going to cast their first vote wanted to have the issue set plainly before them. Boys who would soon become voters were deeply interested in the political literature; those who had read " Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852 were now reading Republican speeches and newspapers. Never in the world had political thinkers and speakers a more attentive and intelligent public than in the North between 1856 and 1860; and the literature was worthy of the public. As people thought more deeply on the slavery question, the New York Weekly Tribune increased its circulation. On the day that it published Seward's speech, one hundred and sixty-two thousand copies were sent out.2 The Republican Association at Washington printed and sold at a low price a large number of Republican documents. Among them were " Governor Seward's Great Speech on the Immediate Admission of Kansas," Seward's Albany and Buffalo speeches, the speeches on Kansas in the Senate, of Wilson, Hale, Collamer, and Harlan. The supply of this sort of literature makes it evident that the Republican Association knew the people whom it must persuade were those who could be reached only by cogent reasoning; the demand shows the desire for correct political education.

The most startling speech made during the debate, the one which, from the events succeeding, became the most celebrated, was that of Charles Sumner. It was delivered on
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1 Simonton to New York Times, April 9th.
2 Edition of April 2d.

the 19th and 20th days of May and was published under the title of "The Crime against Kansas." Two days previously he wrote Theodore Parker: "I shall pronounce the most thorough philippic ever uttered in a legislative body."1 He thought he had girded himself with the spirit of the Athenian, and in one glorious passage his imitation went to the letter of the greatest of orations.2 Sumner stated the question as one involving "liberty in a broad territory;" a territory which had "advantages of situation," "a soil of unsurpassed richness and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface, with a health-giving climate," and which was "calculated to nurture a powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions. . . . Against this territory," he continued, "a crime has been committed which is without example in the records of the Past." It is greater than the crime of Verres in Sicily. Popular institutions have been desecrated; the ballot-box has been plundered. "Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved longing for a new slave State, the hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the national government. Yes, sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, and to make it a hissing to the nations, here in our republic force—ay, sir, force—has been openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and all for the sake of political power. . . . Such is the crime." The criminal is the slave power, and
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1 Life of Parker, Weiss, vol. ii. p. 179.
2 It is curious that, in the excitement prevailing after the assault on Sumner, Butler should bethink himself of his pride in scholarship: "The best part of his [Sumner's] late speech is a periphrasis of Demosthenes. ... I do not say it is a plagiarism; but it is a remarkable imitation, as far as one man incapable of comprehending the true spirit of Demosthenes could imitate him."—Butler, June 13th.

has "an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings." Fresh, probably, from reading the entrancing tale of "The Rise of the Dutch Republic" which his friend Motley had just published, Sumner declared that the tyranny now employed to force slavery upon Kansas was kindred to that of Alva, who sought to force the Inquisition upon the Netherlands.

The crime against Kansas is "the crime of crimes " it is "the crime against nature, from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses to describe." David R. Atchison, like Catiline, " stalked into this chamber, reeking with conspiracy; and then, like Catiline, he skulked away to join and provoke the conspirators, who at a distance awaited their congenial chief." His followers were "murderous robbers from Missouri;" they were "hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization, lashed together by secret signs and lodges," and they "have renewed the incredible atrocities of the assassins and of the Thugs."

The reader may be reminded that although the date of Sumner's speech is later than the time to which I have brought down the history of events in Kansas territory, nothing further of importance occurred until May of this year, and his philippic was based only on those transactions which have already been related in this work. These citations, therefore, will give an idea of his extravagant statements as well as of his turgid rhetoric; and they show the license which he allowed himself in the use of words when wrought up on the subject of slavery.1 It is the speech of a
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1 The Quarterly Review of London said: "That speech is an example and a proof of the deterioration of American taste. Sumner is well known in England, indeed in Europe, as a man of good sense and good taste almost to the edge of fastidiousness." The writer then cites three passages, one of which is the last quotation in the text, and another will be cited later on, and proceeds: "Sumner is too able and practised a speaker not to adapt himself to his audience. This must be the imagery that delights the gravest and the most intelligent body that America possesses; and as such Sumner, much as he may have been ashamed of it, was perhaps justified in using it."

sincere man who saw but one side of the question, whose thought worked in a single groove, and worked intensely. "There is no other side," he vehemently declared to a friend.1

Sumner's speech added nothing of legal or political strength to the controversy. The temperate arguments of the senators who preceded him were of greater weight. But the speech produced a powerful sensation. The bravery with which he hurled defiance towards the South and her institutions challenged admiration. Before this session, on one occasion when he was delivering a fierce invective, Douglas said to a friend: "Do you hear that man? He may be a fool, but I tell you that man has pluck. Nobody can deny that, and I wonder whether he knows himself what he is doing. I am not sure whether I should have courage to say those things to the men who are scowling around him."2 But Sumner knew not fear; and his sincerity was absolute. His speech was prepared with care. To write out such a philippic in the cool seclusion of the study, and deliver it without flinching, was emphasizing to the Southerners that in Sumner they had a persistent antagonist whom the fury of their threats could not frighten.

If there had been no more to Sumner's speech than the invective against the slave power, he would not have been assaulted by Preston Brooks. Nor is it probable that the bitter attack which the senator made on South Carolina would have provoked the violence, had it not been coupled with personal allusions to Senator Butler, who was a kinsman of Brooks.3 In order that the whole extent of the provocation may be understood, it is necessary to quote
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1 Article of George W. Curtis, Appletons' Cyclopaedia of Biography. 2 Eulogy on Sumner, Carl Schurz, Lester, p. 637; also Reminiscences, Ben: Perley Poore, vol. i. p. 461.
3 See remarks of Brooks in the House, July 14th, 1856.

Sumner's most exasperating reflections. "The senator from South Carolina [Butler]," he said, "and the senator from Illinois [Douglas], who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together . . . in championship of human wrongs." "The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf of his wench, Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed." On the second day of his speech Sumner said: "With regret I come again upon the senator from South Carolina [Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate, overflowed with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a State; and, with incoherent phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make. . . . The senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure—with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in the details of statistics or the diversions of scholarship. He cannot open his mouth but out there flies a blunder."1
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1 The attack on South Carolina, which, for want of space, I have not ventured to quote, may be found in Appendix to Congressional Globe, vol. xxxiii., 1st column of page 543.

A careful perusal of Butler's remarks, as published in the Congressional Globe, fails to disclose the reason of this bitter personal attack. His remarks were moderate. He made no reference to Sumner.' His reply to Hale, though spirited, was dignified and did not transcend the bounds of a fastidious parliamentary taste. Yet it must be said that his defence of Atchison, which to-day reads as a tribute to a generous, though rough and misguided, man, was very galling to an ardent friend of the free-State party of Kansas, such as Sumner. Butler was a man of fine family, older in looks than his sixty years, courteous, a lover of learning, and a jurist of reputation. He was honored with the position of chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. When Sumner first came to the Senate, although he was an avowed Free-Soiler, the relations between him and Butler were friendly; they were drawn together by a common love of history and literature. When he made his speech on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Butler paid him a well-chosen compliment at which he expressed his gratification. In June, 1854, however, the two had a very warm discussion in the Senate on the Fugitive Slave law, growing out of the rendition of Burns, in which Butler replied to Sumner's forcible remarks with indignation. Afterwards Butler sent him word that their personal intercourse must be entirely cut off. The only reason which the South Carolina senator could assign for the present personal attack was that Sumner's vanity had been mortified from thinking that he did not come out of the controversy of 1854 with as much credit as he ought, and this was his opportunity for retaliation. 2

But no one understanding Sumner's character can accept
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1 I refer to his remarks at several different times on Kansas in this session of the Thirty-fourth Congress. Several times in the Thirty-third Congress he indulged in personalities towards Sumner. These were collected by Wilson, and stated in his speech of June 13th, 1856. 2 See Butler's speech in the Senate, June 12th, 1856.

this as an explanation. There was nothing vindictive or revengeful in his nature. Besides, he was too much wrapped up in his own self-esteem to give more than a passing thought to a social slight from a slave-holding senator, even though he were a leader in the refined and cultivated society of Washington. Sumner's speech seems excessively florid to the more cultivated taste of the present; he might have made a more effective argument, and one stronger in literary quality without giving offence. The speech occasioned resentment not so much on account of severe political denunciation, as on account of the line of personally insulting metaphor. Yet he did not transgress the bounds of parliamentary decorum, for he was not called to order by the President or by any other senator. The vituperation was unworthy of him and his cause, and the allusion to Butler's condition1 while speaking, ungenerous and pharisaical. The attack was especially unfair, as Butler was not in Washington, and Sumner made note of his absence. It was said that Seward, who read the speech before delivery, advised Sumner to tone down its offensive remarks, and he and Wade regretted the personal attack.2 But Sumner was not fully "conscious of the stinging force of his language."3 To that, and because he was terribly in earnest, must be attributed the imperfections of the speech. He would annihilate the slave power, and he selected South Carolina and her senator as vulnerable points of attack.

The whole story of Sumner's philippic, and its results, cannot be told without reference to his sharp criticism of Douglas. "The senator from Illinois," he said, "is the squire of slavery, its very Sancho Panza, ready to do all its humiliating offices. This senator, in his labored address, vindicating his labored report—piling one mass of elaborate
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1 The habits of the South Carolina senator were notoriously intemperate.
2 Reminiscences, Perley Poore, vol. i. p. 462; Life of Wade, Riddle, p. 243.
3 Eulogy of Schurz, Lester, p. 667.

error upon another mass—constrained himself to unfamiliar decencies of speech. . . . Standing on this floor, the senator issued his rescript, requiring submission to the usurped power of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner —all his own—such as befits the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the senator try. I tell him now that he cannot enforce any such submission. The senator, with the slave power at his back, is strong; but he is not strong enough for this purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry: 'L'audace! L'audace! toujours L’audace ! but even his audacity cannot compass this work. The senator copies the British officer who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword he would cram the 'stamps' down the throats of the American people, and he will meet a similar failure."

When Sumner sat down, Cass, the Nestor of the Senate, rose and said: "I have listened with equal regret and surprise to the speech of the honorable senator from Massachusetts. Such a speech—the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of this high body—I hope never to hear again here or elsewhere."

When Cass had finished, Douglas spoke of the "depth of malignity that issued from every sentence" of Sumner's speech. "Is it his object," Douglas asked, "to provoke some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get sympathy upon the just chastisement?" If the senator, Douglas continued, had said harsh things on the spur of the moment, and "then apologized for them in his cooler hours, I could respect him much more than if he had never made such a departure from the rules of the Senate. . . . But it has been the subject of conversation for weeks that the senator from Massachusetts had his speech written, printed,1 committed to memory. . . . The libels, the gross
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1 The speech was not printed until after delivery, but it was in the printer's hands and mainly in type before spoken in the Senate; see Wilson's speech, June 13th.

insults, which we have heard to-day have been conned over, written with a cool, deliberate malignity, repeated from night to night in order to catch the appropriate grace; and then he came here to spit forth that malignity upon men who differ from him—for that is their offence." Douglas furthermore charged Sumner with being a perjurer, for he had sworn to support the Constitution and yet publicly denied that he would render obedience to the fugitive law. Sumner's reply was exasperating. "Let the senator remember," he said," that the bowie-knife and the bludgeon are not the proper emblems of senatorial debate. Let him remember that the swagger of Bob Acres and the ferocity of the Malay cannot add dignity to this body; . . . that no person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation of all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality," taking for a model "the noisome squat and nameless animal." Douglas made an insulting retort, and Sumner rejoined: "Mr. President, again the senator has switched his tongue, and again he fills the Senate with its offensive odor." Douglas ended the angry colloquy by declaring that a man whom he had branded in the Senate with falsehood was not worthy of a reply.

Two days after this exciting debate (May 22d), when the Senate at the close of a short session adjourned, Sumner remained in the Chamber, occupied in writing letters. Becoming deeply engaged, he drew his arm-chair close to his desk, bent over his writing, and while in this position was approached by Brooks, a representative from South Carolina and a kinsman of Senator Butler. Brooks, standing before and directly over him, said: "I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As he pronounced the last word, he hit Sumner on the head with his cane with the force that a dragoon would give to a sabre-blow.1 Sumner
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1 The cane was gutta-percha, one inch in diameter at the larger and five-eighths of an inch in diameter at the smaller end. Brooks served in the cavalry during the Mexican war.

was more than six feet in height and of powerful frame, but penned under the desk1 he could offer no resistance, and Brooks continued the blows on his defenceless head. The cane broke, but the South Carolinian went on beating1 his victim with the butt. The first blows stunned and blinded Sumner, but instinctively and with powerful effort he wrenched the desk from its fastenings, stood up, and with spasmodic and wildly directed efforts attempted unavailingly to protect himself. Brooks took hold of him, and, while he was reeling and staggering about, struck him again and again. The assailant did not desist until his arm was seized by one who rushed to the spot to stop the assault. At that moment Sumner, reeling, staggering backwards and sideways, fell to the floor bleeding profusely and covered with his blood. 2

The injury received by Sumner was much more severe than was at first thought by his physicians and friends. Four days after the assault, he was able to give at his lodgings his relation of the affair to the committee of the House of Representatives. But, in truth, the blows would have killed most men.3 Sumner's iron constitution and perfect health warded off a fatal result; but it soon appeared that the injury had affected the spinal column. The next three years and a half was a search for cure by a man who, with the exception of a severe fever when he was thirty-three, had rarely known what it was to be ill. He submitted himself to medical treatment at Washington, Boston, and London.
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1 See Pierce's Sumner, vol. iii. p. 470.
2 See the evidence taken by the committee of the House of Representatives, Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii. part 2.
3 Seward wrote his wife, July 5th, 1856: "Sumner is much changed for the worse. His elasticity and vigor are gone. He walks, and in every way moves, like a man who has not altogether recovered from a paralysis, or like a man whose sight is dimmed, and his limbs stiffened with age. . . . His vivacity of spirit and his impatience for study are gone."—Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 283.

He was re-elected to the Senate by an almost unanimous vote of the Massachusetts legislature,1 and tried twice to resume his duties. But Sumner, who was accustomed to ten hours of intellectual work out of the twenty-four, could not now bear the ordinary routine of the day. At last he went to Paris and put himself under the care of Dr. Brown Sequard, whose treatment of actual cauterization of the back eventually restored him to a fair degree of health; but he never regained his former physical vigor. He was not able to enter regularly again on his senatorial career until December, 1859. He did not speak again until June, 1860, when he described in burning words the "Barbarism of Slavery."

To take a man unawares, in a position where he could not defend himself, and injure the seat of his intellect was truly a dreadful deed.

He who was thus struck down in the strength of a splendid manhood was a man of rare physique, vigorous brain, and pure heart; a senator devoted to his work, punctilious in attentiveness to routine, eager for self-improvement. He so loved intellectual labor that he never lost a day.3 The feeling of revenge was foreign to his nature. Stretched on a bed of pain, compelled by shattered nerves to give up the study and the work that were his life, he felt no resentment towards Brooks.4

Full of manly independence, he would submit to no leader, bow to no party, nor solicit any member of the legislature for a vote. His very presence, said a warm political and personal friend, "made you forget the vulgarities of political life."5 He was the soul of honor; and his
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1 He had every vote in the Senate, and 333 out of 345 in the House. Recollections of Charles Sumner, Johnson, Scribner's Magazine, vol. x. p. 298.
2 He was a good example of Spencer's "healthy man of high powers." —Data of Ethics, p. 190.
3 George W. Curtis.
4 Johnson, Scribner's Monthly, vol. viii. p. 483.
5 Schurz, see Lester, p. 668.

absolute integrity extended even to the most trivial affairs of life. Duty was to him sacred, the moral law a daily influence; his thoughts, his deeds, were pure. His faults were venial, and such as we might look for in a spoiled child of a city of culture. He was vain, conceited, fond of flattery, overbearing in manner, and he wore a constant air of superiority.1

He was a profound student of words, but he studied them too much in the lifeless pages of dictionaries, and too little in the living discourse of his fellow-men, so that he failed to get an exact impression of their force and color.2 Consequently, he gave offence at times where none was intended,3 a fault for which he grievously answered.

Preston Brooks, the man who did Sumner this lasting
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1 See J. D. Long, Webster Centennial, vol. i. p. 164. "Sumner requires adulation."—Francis Lieber. See the whole letter, Life of Lieber, p. 296.
Longfellow, making an entry August 29th, 1856, in his diary of a dinner with Prescott, where all the guests were Republicans, writes: "When I came away they were enumerating Sumner's defects, or what they imagined to be such."—Life of Longfellow, vol. ii. p. 282; see also Life of R. H. Dana, C. F. Adams, vol. i. pp. 214, 234.
"Charles Sumner was a handsome, unpleasing man, and an athlete whose physique proclaimed his physical strength. His conversation was studied but brilliant, his manner deferential only as a matter of social policy; consequently he never inspired the women to whom he was attentive with the pleasant consciousness of possessing his regard or esteem."—Life of Jefferson Davis, by his wife, vol. i. p. 557.
2 Sumner " was curious in dictionaries. He had five of the English language among his tools. His Webster and Worcester were presentation copies from the authors. Walker, Pickering, and Johnson were often brought down from the congressional library. It was no unusual thing for the senator, when in full tide of work, to call to his secretary to look up a word in Worcester, and to read the secondary meanings and quotations. Then to refer to Webster, then to Walker, then to Johnson, then to Pickering, and finally the word was used or thrown out, according to the weight of authority."—Johnson, Scribner's Magazine, vol. viii. p. 477.
3 Johnson, Scribner's Magazine, vol. viii. p. 479. "Sumner's silly way of saying the bitterest things without apparent consciousness of saying anything harmful."—Francis Lieber, Life of Lieber, p. 297.

injury, was not a ruffian; he came from one of the good South Carolina families. He was well educated, and had been a member of the House of Representatives for three years, where his conduct had been that of a gentleman. He has been called "courteous, accomplished, warm hearted, and hot-blooded, dear as a friend and fearful as an enemy."1

The different manner in which the North and the South regarded this deed is one of the many evidences of the deep gulf between these two people caused by slavery. The North was struck with horror and indignation. The legislature of Massachusetts immediately took action, and characterized the assault by resolution in fitting terms. Indignation meetings were held all over the North. Edward Everett, who was a type of Northern conservatism, prefaced the delivery of his oration on Washington at Taunton, Mass., by saying: "The civil war, with its horrid train of fire and slaughter, carried on without the slightest provocation against the infant settlements of our brethren on the frontier of the Union—the worse than civil war which, after raging for months unrebuked at the capital of the Union, has at length, with a lawless violence of which I know no example in the annals of constitutional government, stained the floor of the Senate chamber with the blood of a defenceless man, and he a senator from Massachusetts. . . . O my good friends! these are events which, for the good name, the peace, the safety of the country, it were well worth all the gold of California to blot from the record of the past week." 2 The tendency at the North was to forget entirely the personal provocation, and to regard the assault on Sumner as an outrage by the slave power, because he had so vehemently denounced the
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1 Frederic Law Olmsted, Introduction to The Englishman in Kansas, written in 1857, after the death of Brooks.
2 It is necessary to give the whole quotation, that the meaning of the orator may be preserved. The reference to Kansas is to the destruction of printing-offices and the hotel at Lawrence, and the sack of the town which will be later related.

South and her institution. Attendant circumstances gave color to this opinion. Keitt, a representative from South Carolina, stood by, during the assault, brandishing his cane in a menacing manner, and threatening Simonton and others who rushed in to interfere. Edmundson, a representative from Virginia, was at hand to render assistance if necessary.

Ever since the excitement growing out of the Burns case, in May and June, 1854, when Sumner had denounced the Fugitive Slave law in vigorous terms, he had been very obnoxious to the South, and at that time he was warned that he stood in personal danger. He was hated by the South much more intensely than any other Republican. The Southern congressmen stood by Brooks, but they justified his action on account of the supposed insult to his kinsman and State, and they endeavored to make out that Sumner's injuries were slight. The inevitable disagreement of physicians occurred, and there was show of reason, when the excitement ran the highest, for thinking that his hurt would be temporary.1

At Washington, congressional propriety, senatorial courtesy, and the conviction that the Senate chamber had been desecrated, modified the public expression of Southern sentiment. But in the slave States themselves the feeling was given full rein, and it was plainly apparent that the assault was approved of by the press and the people.2 The com
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1 It was at this time that the Washington Union said: "According to the code of political morals which seems to prevail in Massachusetts, it is not only no offence, but praiseworthy, for a senator in Congress to avail himself of his position to indulge day after day in the grossest vituperation and calumny; but, on the other hand, if some opponent thus abused and slandered seeks for satisfaction by applying his gutta-percha to the head of the senator, the crime is so shocking that all Black Republicandom is filled with indignation meetings." Cited by New York Evening Post, May 29th. Forney was no longer editor of the Washington Union.
2 See citations from Southern journals in Von Hoist, vol. v. p. 328 et seq.; also New York Independent, June 12th; New York Tribune, June 24th. A few Southern journals, which were, with one exception, formerly Whig in politics, condemned the assault. They were the Baltimore American and the Patriot, the Louisville Journal, the Augusta Chronicle, the Wilmington (N. C.) Herald, the Petersburg Express, the St. Louis Intelligencer, Clarksville (Tenn.) Jeffersonian, the Memphis Bulletin.

comments of the newspapers and the resolutions of public meetings show that the satisfaction felt at the resentment of a personal insult was merged in the delight that a notorious and hateful abolitionist had been punished. When Brooks returned to South Carolina, he received an enthusiastic welcome. He was honored as a glorious son of the Palmetto State, and making him the present of a cane was a favorite testimonial.1 South Carolina was as jubilant as Massachusetts was sorrowful and incensed. The strife between the North and the South had long been personified by the antagonism between these States, and now, by common consent, they bodied forth the principles of slavery and freedom.

Senator Wilson said in the Senate: "Sumner was stricken down on this floor by a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault." Butler impulsively cried," You are a liar I"2 Brooks challenged Wilson to a duel. The Massachusetts senator declined the challenge in a brave and consistent letter, repeating the words he had employed.3 Representative Burlingame, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, denounced the assault "in the name of that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect. What!" he said, "strike
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1 A cane presented him by gentlemen of Charleston bore the inscription, "Hit him again." Columbia (S. C.) Banner, cited by New York Independent, June 12th. One presented him by a portion of his constituents was inscribed, "Use knock-down arguments." New York Tribune, June 6th. "The students of the University of Virginia have voted a splendid cane to the Hon. Mr. Brooks for his attack on Mr. Sumner. The cane is to have a heavy gold head, which will be suitably inscribed, and also bear upon it a device of a human head, badly cracked and broken." —Philadelphia Pennsylvanian, May 31st.
2 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 486. Butler immediately apologized to the Senate, and the words are not reported in the Congressional Globe. This was May 27th. 3 Ibid.

a man when he is pinioned—when he cannot respond to a blow 1 Call you that chivalry ?"1 Although the remarks of Burlingame were at first explained away, they eventually resulted in a challenge from Brooks. This was promptly accepted, and the arrangement of details was referred by Burlingame to Lewis D. Campbell. Campbell selected for the meeting a place near the Clifton House, Niagara Falls, but Brooks declined to fight the duel there, on the ground that in the excited state of feeling at the North he would not be permitted to reach Canada in safety. 2

The explanation of Brooks in the House of Representatives did not make his assault on Sumner appear any less infamous to Northern men who were unfamiliar with "the code of honor." He said: "I went to work very deliberately, as I am charged—and this is admitted—and speculated somewhat whether I should employ a horse-whip or a cowhide; but knowing that the senator was my superior in strength,3 it occurred to me that he might wrest it from my hand and then — for I never attempt anything I do not perform — I might have been compelled to do that which I would have regretted the balance of my natural life. The question has been asked why did I not invite the senator to personal combat in the mode usually adopted. .. . My answer is that I knew the senator would not accept a message; and having formed the unalterable determination to punish him, I believed that the offence of sending a hostile message, superadded to the indictment for assault and battery, would subject me to legal penalties
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1 These remarks were made June 21st.
2 For the full details of this transaction see Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 491. I could not reach Canada, Brooks wrote, " without running the gantlet of mobs and assassins, prisons and penitentiaries, bailiffs and constables."—New York Times, July 25th. Brooks had been tried for assault in a District of Columbia court, and fined three hundred dollars. New York Tribune, July 10th.
3 Brooks was six feet one inch tall.

more severe than would be imposed for a simple assault and battery."1

At the North the assault of Brooks was considered brutal and cowardly; at the South, his name was never mentioned without calling him gallant or courageous, spirited or noble. This difference in the standards of conduct of people of the same country, race, and religion shows how slavery had demoralized its supporters. It was noted and explained by Olmsted. "Southerners," he wrote, "do not feel magnanimity and the fair-play impulse to be a necessary part of the quality of spirit, courage, and nobleness. By spirit they apparently mean only passionate vindictiveness of character, and by gallantry mere intrepidity." 2 The South rallied to Brooks as the champion of their cause.

The North was stirred to the depths. Doctor Holmes expressed the feeling in his toast: "To the surgeons of the city of Washington—God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of a mighty empire and of uncounted generations."3 Seward said in the Senate :4 "The blows that fell on the head of the senator from Massachusetts have done more for the cause of human freedom in Kansas and in the territories of the United States than all the eloquence—I do not call it agitation—which has resounded in these halls from the days when Rufus King asserted that cause in this chamber, and when John Quincy Adams defended it in the other house, until the present hour." Sumner's speech was a powerful factor in influencing public sentiment. Under the title of "The Crime against Kansas," half a million copies of it were circulated.

The day after the assault many members of Congress
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1 This speech was made July 14th.
2 F. L. Olmsted's Introduction to The Englishman in Kansas, written in 1857, p. xix.
3 Life of Sumner, Nason, p. 227.
4 June 24th.
5 So Sumner, when in Paris, told De Tocqueville. George F. Hoar in the North American Review, vol. cxxvi. p. 1.

went to their seats armed.1 An exciting time was anticipated in the Senate, but the proceedings were tame. Wilson gave a temperate relation of the facts, and Seward offered a resolution for the appointment of a committee to consider the affair. This was agreed to, but not a Republican was given a place on the committee. In due time they reported that the "assault was a breach of the privileges of the Senate," but that it was not within its jurisdiction, and could only be punished by the House of Representatives. This report received the approbation of the Senate almost unanimously, there being but one vote against it. A committee was appointed by the House which took a large amount of evidence, and the majority reported a resolution in favor of the expulsion of Brooks. On this resolution, the vote was 121 to 95; but as it required two thirds, it was not carried. Only three Southern representatives publicly condemned the assault; only one voted to expel Brooks.2 After the decision by the House, Brooks made a speech, which he ended by resigning his place as representative. His district re-elected him almost unanimously: there were only six votes against him.3

The evidence of Sumner taken on his sick-bed mentioned that when he returned to consciousness after the assault, he was lying on the floor with his bleeding head supported on the knee of a friend, and that at a distance, looking on but offering no assistance, were Douglas and Toombs. When he was assisted to the lobby of the Senate, he recognized Slidell, of Louisiana. These gentlemen felt that it was incumbent on them to make an explanation. Slidell stated that he was in the antechamber engaged in conversation with Douglas and others. A messenger of the Senate in great trepidation entered and said some one was beating
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1 Pike to the New York Tribune, May 23d, Pike's First Blows of the Civil War, p. 339.
2 Von Hoist, vol. v. p. 326.
3 Ibid., p. 328.

Sumner. "We heard this remark," Slidell said, "without any particular emotion; for my own part, I confess I felt none. ... I remained very quietly in my seat; the other gentlemen did the same; we did not move." Douglas stated that on hearing the remark of the messenger, "I rose involuntarily to my feet. My first impression was to come into the Senate chamber and help to put an end to the affray, if I could; but it occurred to my mind in an instant that my relations to Mr. Sumner were such that if I came into the Hall, my motives would be misconstrued, perhaps, and I sat down again." A moment afterwards hearing that Brooks had beaten Sumner badly, he went into the Senate chamber. Toombs saw part of the assault; he did not render Sumner any assistance. Hearing some gentlemen condemn the action, he stated to Brooks or to some of his own friends that he approved it.1

Before leaving this subject, fairness requires that allusion should be made to the speech of Butler,2 which is a plaintive regret for what had taken place. Yet he magnified the offence of Sumner; he assumed that the hurt was not serious, and defended the attack of Brooks. The blood of Sumner's friends must have boiled as they heard or read the speech at the time; but, in the cool atmosphere of the present, the mournful words of Butler almost elicit sympathy for him in the part which the interests of his family and his order compelled him to play. His statement how he should have acted had he been present in the Senate when Sumner made his speech is necessary to the history of the transaction. "My impression now is," he said, "that I should have asked the senator, before he finished some of the paragraphs personally applicable to myself, to pause; and if he had gone on, I would have demanded of him, the next morning, that he should review that speech, and retract or modify it, so as to bring it within the sphere
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1 These explanations were made May 27th.
2 June 12th and 13th.

of parliamentary propriety. If he had refused this, what I would have done I cannot say; yet I can say that I would not have submitted to it. But what mode of redress I should have resorted to, I cannot tell."

Brooks died the following January, but not before he had confessed to his friend, Orr, that he was sick of being regarded as the representative of bullies, and disgusted at receiving testimonials of their esteem.1 Butler lived but a few days over a year from the time that the assault was made in satisfaction of what was deemed his injured honor.

During the first months of 1856, the interest in Kansas territory divided the attention of the country with the proceedings in Congress. There was note of preparation for the spring campaign at the North and at the South. Atchison made an appeal to the slave States. "Let your young men come forth to Missouri and Kansas!" he wrote; "let them come well armed!"2 Well-attended public meetings were held all over the cotton States, at which gentlemen of property and standing presided. The object was to get men to enlist, and to raise money for their support in the expected Kansas war. The communities were roused by violent speeches in which the danger to the Southern institution was effectively portrayed.3 It was proposed in the Georgia legislature to appropriate fifty thousand dollars to aid emigration to Kansas; and it was understood that the money would be used to arm and equip military companies. Milder counsels, however, prevailed when the project came to a vote, and it was not carried.4 A bill to assist emigrants to Kansas was introduced into the Alabama legislature, and, with
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1 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 495.
2 D. R. Atchison to the editor of the Atlanta (Ga.) Examiner, New York Tribune, January 19th.
3 See National Intelligencer, Feb. 17th, March 18th, April 1st; The Englishman in Kansas, Gladstone, p. 6; letter from Montgomery, January 22d, New York Tribune, February 2d.
4 National Intelligencer, February 23d.

much reason, it was proposed to get the means by a separate tax upon the slave property of the State. The results at the South were not commensurate with the efforts, mainly for the reason that ready money was hard to be obtained, while the men who were willing to go would be dependent for their support on the contributions of the wealthier citizens. If fiery newspaper articles could have created men and money, there would have been no lack.

Yet one notable company was raised through the energy and sacrifice of Colonel Buford, of Alabama. He issued an appeal for three hundred industrious and sober men, capable of bearing arms and willing to fight for the cause of the South. He would himself contribute twenty thousand dollars, and he agreed to give each man who enlisted forty acres of good Kansas land and support him for a year.1 He sold his slaves to provide the money he had promised.2 Owing to the fervent appeals of the press, contributions from many quarters were obtained, and the enthusiasm was not confined to the men. A daughter of South Carolina sent to the editor of a newspaper a gold chain which would realize enough to furnish one man, and she begged him to let the ladies of her neighborhood know when more money was needed, for then, she wrote, "we will give up our personal embellishments and expose them for sale." 3

Buford raised two hundred and eighty men 4 from South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Many of them were the poor relations and dependants of the wealthy slave-holders; others were poor whites. Some were intelligent, and afterwards proved worthy citizens; but the majority were ignorant and brutal, and made fit companions for the Missouri border ruffians, by whom they were received with open
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1 This appeal is printed in the Liberator of February 1st
2 Montgomery (Ala.) Mail, Montgomery Advertiser, Mobile News, cited in the Liberator of February 22d.
3 Edgefield (S. C.) Advertiser, cited by New York Times, March 7th. 4 New Orleans Picayune, cited by the Independent, May 1st.

arms.1 The day that Buford's battalion started from Montgomery, they marched to the Baptist church. The Methodist minister solemnly invoked the divine blessing on their enterprise; the Baptist pastor gave Buford a finely bound Bible, and said that a subscription had been raised to present each emigrant with a copy of the Holy Scriptures. Three or four thousand citizens gathered on the river bank to bid them farewell, and there were not lacking "the bright smiles and happy faces" of the ladies to cheer them on. A distinguished citizen made them an address, saying that " on them rested the future welfare of the South; they were armed with the Bible, a weapon more potent than Sharpens rifles; and, in the language of Lord Nelson, 2 every man was expected to do his duty.'" 2 The South Carolina contingent had not, on leaving home, been provided with Bibles; it had there been proclaimed that all the equipment needed was a good common country rifle.3

At the North, the importance of the conflict in Kansas was appreciated. The feeling may have been no deeper than at the South, but the manifestations of it were more numerous. The Tribune declared that "the duty of the people of the free States is to send more true men, more Sharpe's rifles, and more field pieces and howitzers to Kansas!"4 The New York Times said: "The question of slavery domination must and will be fought out on the plains of Kansas."6 These sentiments were everywhere echoed. Public meetings in aid of Kansas were held all
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1 Kansas correspondence New York Tribune, April 26th and May 3d; Geary and Kansas, Gihon, p. 73; Sara Robinson's Kansas, pp. 241, 271.
2 Montgomery Journal, cited by the Independent, April 17th.
3 Charleston (S. C.) News, March 27th, cited by the National Intelligencer. Senator Iverson, of Georgia, said that Buford's men went to Kansas unarmed. Wilson said that was true, but when they got to the territory Governor Shannon armed them and called them out as part of his military force. Congressional Globe, vol. xxxiii. pp. 844, 855.
4 New York Weekly Tribune, February 2d. 5 February 15th.

over the free States; committees to collect money and use it properly were appointed; emigration was in every way encouraged. Bryant wrote to his brother: "The whole city (New York) is alive with the excitement of the Kansas news, and people are subscribing liberally to the Emigrants' Aid Society. The companies of emigrants will be sent forward as soon as the rivers and lakes are opened, and by the 1st of May there will be several thousand more free-State settlers in Kansas than there now are. Of course they will go well armed."1

The most warlike demonstration, and one which excited the greatest attention, was at New Haven. Charles B. Lines, a deacon of a New Haven congregation, had enlisted a company of seventy-nine emigrants. A meeting was held in the church shortly before their departure for the purpose of raising funds. Many clergymen and many of the Yale College faculty were present. The leader of the party said that Sharpe's rifles were lacking, and they were needed for self-defence. After an earnest address from Henry Ward Beecher, the subscription began. Professor Silliman started it with one Sharpe's rifle; the pastor of the church gave the second; other gentlemen and some ladies followed the example. As fifty was the number wanted, Beecher said that if twenty-five were pledged on the spot, Plymouth Church would furnish the rest.2 Previous to this meeting, he had declared that for the slave-holders of Kansas the Sharpe's rifle was a greater moral agency than the Bible; and from that time the favorite arms of the Northern emigrants became known as " Beecher's Bibles."3
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1 Letter dated February 15th, Life of Bryant, Godwin, vol. ii. p. 88.
2 New York Independent, March 26th. The number of rifles wanted was subscribed.
3 Ibid., February 7th. Remark of Senator Butler, Congressional Globe, vol. xxxii. p. 1094. A somewhat different explanation is given in the Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, p. 283; see also correspondence between Beecher and Lines, New York Times, April 4th.

The Democratic journal of Boston charged the college professors of New Haven with being guilty of overt treason; and the Democratic newspapers of New York classed together the border ruffians of Missouri and the abolition ruffians of New England.1

The winter in Kansas was unusually severe. The ground was covered with snow. For weeks the thermometer ranged from ten to thirty degrees below zero, and once the mercury froze within and burst the bulb.2 The sufferings of the settlers were intense. Their hastily built houses and cabins lacked comfort; it was impossible to keep them warm. Mrs. Robinson relates that water would freeze in the tumblers on the table while the family were at breakfast; that the bread could be cut only as it was thawed before the fire, and the apples and potatoes were as hard as rocks.3 The tale told by this faithful diarist of the sufferings of the men and women in the territory makes one feel that their lot was indeed hard; for the contest with nature followed fast upon the civil strife. "To face a Missouri mob," she wrote, "is nothing to facing these winds which sweep over the prairies."4 Yet a Siberian winter might be regarded as nature's protest against the adaptability of Kansas to negro slavery. The few slaves in the territory fared badly. Judge Elmore, probably the largest slave-holder in Kansas, and his wife had to exert themselves to the utmost to keep their nineteen negroes alive. He was himself obliged to haul wood and cut it to keep them warm; nevertheless, one old man froze to death in his bed, and another was so severely frost-bitten that he was injured for life.5
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1 Boston Post, March 28th; New York Journal of Commerce, cited by the Liberator, February 29th.
2 Letter to New York Times, February 14th. See Sara Robinson's Kansas.
3 See Sara Robinson's Kansas, p. 166.
4 Ibid., p. 165; see also Six Months in Kansas, by a Lady, p. 153 et seq.
5 Sara Robinson's Kansas, p. 213; Reeder's Diary, Kansas Hist. Soc, vol. i. p. 13.

The destruction of Lawrence was threatened during the winter, but the severity of the weather prevented any operations. The tone of the letters received in February at Washington from the free-State settlers gave reason to believe that a bloody conflict was imminent.1 March, however, passed without a demonstration, and for the first part of April quiet reigned; "a quiet," Mrs. Robinson wrote, "which seemed almost fearful from the very stillness."2 In April the congressional investigating committee, Buford and his men, and the New Haven colony, arrived. The committee went immediately to work taking the testimony, which proved an invaluable document for the Republican party of 1856. It is likewise excellent evidence for the historian of the period.3 The New Haven colony settled at a place on the Kansas River sixty-five miles above Lawrence. They at once set to work ploughing and planting; they surrounded themselves with all obtainable appliances of civilization, and it was their hope that in a few years they would have in their Kansas home the comforts to which they had been used in Connecticut.4 It was soon apparent that Buford's men knew not how to plough or to sow, but it seemed likely that they might be put to other service. In April, emigrants from the North began to arrive in large numbers; but besides Buford's battalion, it does not appear that there were accessions of consequence from the Southern States. 5

On the 19th of April, Sheriff Jones came to Lawrence and attempted to arrest one of Branson's rescuers, who resisted and struck the sheriff. Four days later, Jones reappeared
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1 Greeley to New York Tribune, March 1st.
2 Sara Robinson's Kansas, p. 196.
3 This report comprises 1188 pages. Much of the testimony was published in the Republican newspapers at the time that it was taken. Three hundred and twenty-three witnesses were examined. Spring's Kansas, p. 108.
4 New York Independent, June 19th.
5 Sara Robinson's Kansas, p. 196; New York Independent, May 1st; Spring's Kansas, pp. 105,165.

in the town with a detachment of United States soldiers which had been furnished him by Governor Shannon. He arrested six men on the charge of contempt of court. In the evening, while sitting in the tent of Lieutenant McIntosh, who was in command of the soldiers, Jones was shot in the back. A public meeting of Lawrence citizens promptly disavowed any connection with the affair, and pledged themselves to do their best to bring the guilty party or parties to justice. The wound was not fatal, but it was for some time reported that Jones was dead. As he was a hero among the border ruffians, they breathed forth vengeance against Lawrence, and demanded, in their forcible language, that the abolition town should be wiped out.

At this time Judge Lecompte, the chief justice of the territory, came to the aid of the pro-slavery party. He charged the grand jury, in session at Lecompton, that the laws passed by the pro-slavery territorial legislature were of United States authority and making;' that all who "resist these laws resist the power and authority of the United States, and are therefore guilty of high treason.... If you find that no such resistance has been made, but that combinations have been formed for the purpose of resisting them, and that individuals of influence and notoriety have been aiding and abetting in such combinations, then must you find bills for constructive treason." The grand jury, without taking any evidence, indicted Reeder, Robinson, Lane, and others for treason; they also recommended the abatement, as a nuisance, of the newspapers The Herald of Freedom and The Kansas Free State, published at Lawrence; and as the Free-State hotel in Lawrence had been constructed with a view to military occupation and defence, they recommended that it be demolished. An attempt was made to arrest Reeder at Lawrence while he was examining a witness before the congressional investigating committee, but he put himself upon his privilege, claimed the protection of the committee,
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1 For an account of these laws, see p. 99.

told the United States deputy marshal that he would defend himself, and that the attempt to arrest him would be attended with peril. The officer deemed it prudent to relinquish his purpose. Reeder afterwards escaped from the territory in disguise.

Robinson started for the East on a mission for the cause in which he was engaged, but he was stopped at Lexington, Missouri. This arrest was arbitrary, but he was detained there under guard until the proper legal papers came from Kansas; he was then taken to Lecompton, where he was held a prisoner for four months.

On the 11th of May, the United States marshal for Kansas territory, Donaldson, issued a proclamation to the people stating that he had certain writs to execute in Lawrence; his deputy had been resisted on a similar errand and he had every reason to believe that the attempt to execute the writs would be resisted by a large body of armed men; therefore he commanded all the law-abiding citizens of the territory to appear at Lecompton as soon as possible in sufficient force to execute the law. No call could have better pleased the border ruffians. Now had come the long-wished for opportunity to wipe out the odious town of Lawrence, and send its inhabitants north to Nebraska, where they belonged. Through all the threats and fulminations of the pro-slavery party, it plainly appears that they sincerely thought that the intent of the Kansas-Nebraska act was to give one territory to slavery, the other to freedom; therefore the settlement of Northern people in Kansas was a cheat and an encroachment on their rights. There were probably, however, not more than fifty slave-holders in Kansas, and all that kept the pro-slavery cause alive was the powerful backing it had from western Missouri.

The publication of the marshal's proclamation increased the commotion in eastern Kansas and western Missouri and the alarm of the Lawrence people. Their trusted leader, Robinson, was a prisoner, and there was no one to take his place; but they decided to temporize, which was undoubtedly the best policy. They had already requested Governor Shannon to send them United States troops for protection, but this he refused to do. Now, as they heard of the gathering of the clans on the Missouri border, they held a public meeting and solemnly averred that the statement and inference in Donaldson's proclamation were false. They also endeavored to placate the marshal, but without avail.

The marshal's posse began to collect in the neighborhood of Lawrence. On the 19th of May a young man, returning from Lawrence, was shot by two of the proslavery horde, apparently for no other reason than that he was an abolitionist. Three adventurous spirits of Lawrence rode out to avenge his murder, and one of them was killed.

On the 21st of May, the marshal's posse gathered on the bluffs west of the town. It was composed of the Douglas County (Kansas) Militia, the Kickapoo Rangers, other companies from eastern Kansas led by Stringfellow, the Missouri Platte County Rifles with two pieces of artillery commanded by Atchison, three other companies of border ruffians, and Buford and his men. It was a swearing, whiskey-drinking, ruffianly horde, seven hundred and fifty in number. The irony of fate had made them the upholders of the law, while the industrious, frugal community of Lawrence were the law-breakers. The deputy-marshal, attended with a small escort, walked into the town and made some arrests. Not the slightest resistance was offered. The business of the United States official was soon completed; but the sheriff of Douglas county had work to do, and Donaldson turned over the posse to Sheriff Jones, saying: "He is a law-and-order man, and acts under the same authority as the marshal." Jones, the idol of the pro-slavery party, was received with wild demonstrations of delight. Under his lead the posse marched into the town, dragging their five pieces of artillery and with banners flying. No company, however, carried the flag of the Union. One banner had a single white star and bore the inscriptions, "Southern Rights" and "South Carolina;" another had in blue letters on a white ground—

"Let Yankees tremble, abolitionists fall;
Our motto is, Give Southern rights to all."

The offices of the obnoxious newspapers were quickly destroyed; the types and presses were broken, and, with the books and papers, thrown into the street or carried to the river. The writ against the splendid stone hotel just completed remained to be executed. At this point Atchison counselled moderation; Buford also disliked to aid in the destruction of property. But Jones was implacable. His wound still rankled and he was bent on revenge. He demanded of Pomeroy, the representative of the Emigrant-Aid Company, all the Sharpe's rifles and artillery in the town. The rifles were refused on the ground that they were private property, but a cannon was given up. Four cannon were then pointed at the hotel and thirty-two shots were fired, but little damage was done. The attempt was then made to blow it up with kegs of powder, but without success. At last the torch was applied and the hotel destroyed. The liquors and wines found in the Yankee hotel were not disdained, and the glee felt at the outcome of the movement was increased by frequent potations. The ruffians were ripe for mischief; and when Sheriff Jones said his work was done and the posse dismissed, they sacked the town and set fire to Governor Robinson's house.1

The revelry was kept up as those who composed the posse journeyed to their homes. Jubilant border ruffians were everywhere met on the routes of travel, drinking to
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1 My authorities for this relation are Spring's Kansas; Sara Robinson's Kansas; Reeder's Diary, Kansas Historical Society's Publications; Geary and Kansas, Gihon; The Englishman in Kansas, Gladstone; the Conquest of Kansas, Phillips; Message and Documents, 1856-57, part i.; article of Amos Townsend, sergeant-at-arms of the congressional committee, Magazine of Western History, March, 1888; The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson. The author is the Dr. Robinson and Governor Robinson referred to in the text.

the victory which had crowned their efforts. But it was a victory worse than a defeat. The attack on Lawrence took place the day before the assault on Sumner; the news of it came to the people of the North a little later. These were two startling events; their coincidence in time was used with great impression by the Republican press. Freedom's representative had been struck down in the Senate chamber; the city dedicated to freedom on the plains of Kansas had been destroyed. Such were the texts on which the liberty-loving journalists wrote, and their masterly pens did full justice to the theme. The first reports were exaggerated. They were to the effect that Lawrence was in ruins, that many persons were killed, and that Pomeroy had been hanged by a mob.1 Nevertheless, after all misstatements had been corrected and the true history of the affair arrived at, it still remained a most pregnant Republican argument. When President Pierce heard of the motley crowd assembled by the marshal as a posse, he feared the business would be managed badly, and telegraphed Governor Shannon and Colonel Sumner that the United States troops were sufficient to enforce the laws, and that they only should be used. But before this despatch was sent, the mischief had been done.

At no time had the enthusiasm for free Kansas in the North been so great as when the news of this attack on Lawrence became disseminated. Meetings for the aid of Kansas were everywhere held. The burden of the speeches was the attempt to crush out Freedom's stronghold in Kansas and the effort to silence Sumner in the Senate. Men enlisted in the cause, and money was freely subscribed.2
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1 See New York Weekly Tribune, May 31st. But one man was killed, and he was a pro-slavery man. A brick from the Free-State hotel fell upon him with a fatal result. Conquest of Kansas, Phillips.
2 "The raid upon Lawrence, and the blockade of the Missouri river, added to the false imprisonment of our leading men, aroused the indignation of the North to such an extent that the freedom of Kansas was secure. From this time no further effort was required to raise colonies. They raised themselves."—Kansas Crusade, Thayer, p. 211.

In the territory itself, most of the free-State party were at first dismayed; but there were others in whom a spirit of bitter revenge was aroused. John Brown now appeared prominently on the scene. He had come to Kansas the previous October to join his sons, who had settled at Osawatomie, but the motive which led him was his powerful desire to strike a blow at slavery.

John Brown was ascetic in habits, inflexible in temper, upright in intention. In business he was fertile in plans, but their execution brought failure, for he was what people called a visionary man. He raised sheep, cultivated the grape, made wine, and for some years was extensively engaged in partnership with a gentleman of capital in buying and selling, as well as growing, wool. He had good opportunities, but missed them, while his ventures were unprofitable. Being constantly harassed with debts, he could not pay his creditors, and died insolvent.1

John Brown was born out of due time. A stern Calvinist and a Puritan, he would have found the religious wars of Europe or the early days of the Massachusetts colonies an atmosphere suited to his bent. He read the Bible diligently, and he drew his inspiration from the Old Testament. His intimate letters, a curious mixture of pious ejaculations and worldly details, of Scripture quotations and the price of farm products, call to mind the puritanical jargon of Cromwell's time. Indeed, the great Protector was his hero: he early imbibed a hatred of slavery, and was eager to earn money not as the price of comforts and luxuries, for his life
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1 Brown's plan of grading wool, which engaged the support of Perkins, his wealthy partner in the wool commission business, was, however, based on correct principles, and only failed because it was in advance of his time. When disaster came and the firm was loaded with debts, these were saddled upon Perkins as the responsible partner; and while his loss was heavy, he never had the feeling that Brown's conduct had been other than strictly honest. I am indebted for this information to my friend Mr. Simon Perkins, a son of the gentleman who was in partnership with Brown.

was of a Spartan frugality, but as the means of freeing the slaves.

Brown, who admired Nat Turner as much as he did George Washington, was tender to the negro, and had brooded for years over the wrongs of the slaves. With this feeling dominant in his mind he had come to Kansas and enlisted in the Wakarusa war, but denounced the treaty of peace which terminated it: the action of the free-State party seemed to him pusillanimous. Narrow-minded and of moderate intellectual ability, Brown despised the ordinary means of educating public sentiment, and had no comprehension of government by discussion. In his opinion, Kansas could only be made free by the shedding of blood, and that work ought at once to begin.1

When the attack on Lawrence was threatened, the Brown family and their followers were called upon to aid in the defence; but, on the way, they heard of the destruction which had taken place, and turned back. The news made a profound impression on Brown. He felt that the acts of the pro-slavery horde must be atoned for. He reckoned up that since and including the murder of Dow,2 five free-State men had been killed. Their blood must be expiated by an equal number of victims. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins," was one of his favorite texts. A direction was given to his fanatical thoughts by remembering that threats had been made against his family by some pro-slavery settlers at Dutch Henry's crossing of the Pottawatomie. He called for volunteers to go on a secret expedition. Four sons, a son-in-law, and two other men accompanied him. John Brown's word was law to his family. He had the power of communicating to them his enthusiasm for the cause of freedom; but when he declared

1 The facts on which I have based this characterization I have drawn from Life and Letters of John Brown, F. B. Sanborn; Life of Captain John Brown, by James Redpath; Essay on John Brown, by Von Hoist 2 See p. 104.

that the object of his mission was to sweep off all the proslavery men living on the creek, Townsley, one of the men, demurred. Brown said: "I have no choice. It has been decreed by Almighty God, ordained from eternity, that I should make an example of these men."1 Yet it took a day to persuade Townsley to continue with the expedition. On Saturday night, May 24th, the blow was struck. Brown and his band went first to the house of Doyle, and compelled a father and two sons to go with them. A surviving son afterwards testified under oath that the next morning "I found my father and one brother, William, lying dead in the road, about two hundred yards from the house. I saw my other brother lying dead on the ground, about one hundred and fifty yards from the house, in the grass, near a ravine; his fingers were cut off and his arms were cut off; his head was cut open; there was a hole in his breast. William's head was cut open, and a hole was in his jaw, as though it was made by a knife; and a hole was also in his side. My father was shot in the forehead and stabbed in the breast."2 The band then went to Wilkinson's house, reaching there past midnight. They forced him to open the door, and demanded that he should go with them. . His wife was sick and helpless, and begged that they should not take her husband away. The prayer was of no avail. The next day Wilkinson was found dead, "a gash in his head and in his side."3 A little later in the night the band killed William Sherman in like manner. In the morning his body was found. His "skull was split open in two places, and some of his brains was washed out by the water. A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off, except a little piece of skin on one side."4 The execution was done with short cutlasses which had been brought from Ohio by John Brown. He gave the signal; his devoted followers struck the blows. Townsley, twenty
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1 Spring's Kansas, p. 144.
3 Ibid., p. 1180.
2 Oliver Report, p. 1177.
4 Ibid., p. 1179.

three years afterwards, stated that Brown shot the elder Doyle, but he himself denied that he had had a hand in the actual killing.1 The deed was so atrocious that for years his friends and admirers refused to believe that he had been at all concerned in it.2 They shut their eyes to patent facts, for at the time it was easy to get at the truth. The affidavits in regard to the affair, which Oliver, the Democratic member of the congressional committee, caused to be taken, his speech in the House, explaining and confirming the evidence, the universal belief of free-State and pro-slavery men in the territory, established beyond any reasonable doubt that John Brown and his party were guilty of these assassinations. Considering the general character of the border settlers, those who were killed were not exceptionally bad men.3 They had made threats against the Browns and maltreated a store-keeper who had sold lead to free State men. But the Browns had also made threats; and in Kansas, in 1856, threats were common, and frequently unmeaning. If every word spoken by the border ruffians were taken at its proper value, Robinson and Reeder had long stood in jeopardy. It was reported that even John Sherman had been threatened.4 There was absolutely no justification for these midnight executions.5

A tender-hearted son of John Brown, who did not accompany this expedition, said to his father a day or two after the massacre: "Father, did you have anything to do
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1 See Reminiscences of Old John Brown, G. W. Brown, pp. 17 and 72; Sanborn, p. 273; Redpath, p. 119; The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 265.
2 In Redpath's Life of Captain John Brown, published in 1860, this view is prominent. Sanborn's book, however, published in 1885, gives the facts freely and fairly, and the author attempts to justify the deed. 3That is the conclusion of Professor Spring, p. 147; see, also, The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 484. Sanborn has a different view, see p.257.
4 Correspondence New York Tribune, May 25th; Sara Robinson's Kansas, p. 272.
5 See The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, chap. xl.

with that bloody affair on the Pottawatomie?" Brown replied: "I approved of it." The son answered: "Whoever did it, the act was uncalled for and wicked." Brown then said: "God is my judge. The people of Kansas will yet justify my course."1

In passing judgment at this day, we must emphasize the reproach of the son; yet we should hesitate before measuring the same condemnation to the doer and to the deed. John Brown's God was the God of Joshua and Gideon. To him, as to them, seemed to come the word to go out and slay the enemies of his cause. He had no remorse. It was said that on the next morning when the old man raised his hands to Heaven to ask a blessing, they were still stained with the dried blood of his victims.2 What the world called murder was for him the execution of a decree of God. But of the sincerity of the man there can be no question.

Of the historical significance of this deed and Brown's subsequent actions we may speak with great positiveness. He has been called the liberator of Kansas, but it may be safely affirmed that Kansas would have become a free State in much the same manner and about the same time that it actually did, had John Brown never appeared on the scene of action. The massacre on the Pottawatomie undoubtedly made the contest more bitter and sanguinary, but there is no reason for thinking that its net results were of advantage to the free-State cause.3 As tidings of these executions became known a cry of horror went up throughout the territory. The squatters on Pottawatomie Creek, without distinction of party, met together and denounced the outrage and its perpetrators.4 The free-State men everywhere took pains to disavow any connection with such a mode of operation. The border
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1 Sanborn, p. 250.
2 Ibid., note, p. 270.
3 Professor Spring's judgment is: "John Brown is a parenthesis in the history of Kansas."—Kansas, p. 137; see also pp. 140,149,162; also The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 276 et seq.
4 Spring's Kansas, p. 147; The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 275.

Page 166

ruffians were wild with fury. While Governor Robinson was at Leavenworth a prisoner, on the way to Lecompton, an excited mob threatened to take him from his guard and lynch him.1 Threats were also made to hang the free-State prisoners who were at Lecompton.2

Governor Shannon promptly sent a military force to the Pottawatomie region to discover, if possible, those who had been engaged in the massacre and arrest them. The border ruffians also took the field, eager to avenge the murder of their friends. Pate, who commanded the sharpshooters of Westport, Missouri, feeling confident that Brown was the author of the outrage, went in search of him. Brown, hearing that he was sought, put himself in the way of the Missourian, gave battle, and captured the border-ruffian company. "I went to take Old Brown," wrote Pate, "and Old Brown took me." 3

All the military organizations of the free-State party made ready for war. Among the Northern emigrants there were adventurers who were attracted by the prevailing disorder. These, for the most part, came into the territory in the spring of 1856; and there were others who, under ordinary conditions, might have been made steady colonists, but whose natural pugnacity was incited by the attack on Lawrence.

The pro-slavery leaders, alarmed at the flood of Northern emigration that poured into the territory, laid an embargo on the Missouri River, which was the great highway from the East to Kansas. Sharps rifles and other suspicious freight were seized. Travellers bound for Kansas, unable, according to the Missouri standard, to give a good account of themselves, were sent back down the river.4 Kansas was now in a state of civil war, a struggle of Guelphs and Ghibellines. Governor Shannon issued a
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1 Kansas, Sara Robinson, p. 271; The Englishman in Kansas, Gladstone, p. 65; The Kansas Conflict, Charles Robinson, p. 282.
2 Reminiscences of Old John Brown, G. W. Brown, p. 13.
3 Spring's Kansas, p. 156.
4 Ibid., p. 166.

proclamation commanding all armed companies to disperse, and Colonel Sumner set out with fifty United States dragoons to execute the governor's order. He forced Brown to release the prisoners, but, although a deputy marshal was with him, no arrests were made. Colonel Sumner then met two hundred and fifty Missourians, under the command of Whitfield, the pro-slavery delegate to Congress, and ordered them back. They went home, but on the way they pillaged the hated town of Osawatomie, and left behind them the dead bodies of two or three Free-soilers.1

Guerrilla bands of both parties wandered over the country, and whenever they met they fought.2 In a great part of the territory husbandry was neglected. Redpath, who was a newspaper correspondent and free-State warrior, relates that in the district between Osawatomie and Lawrence, men went out to till the soil in companies of five or ten, armed to the teeth.3 Phillips saw delicately reared New England women working in the fields.4 "Whenever two men approached each other," Redpath wrote, "they came up pistol in hand, and the first salutation invariably was: 'Free-State or pro-slave?' ... It not unfrequently happened that the next sound was the report of a pistol." 5

The Topeka party kept up their organization; their legislature assembled July 4th. Colonel Sumner, under the requisition of the secretary of the territory, Woodson, who, in the absence of Shannon, was acting governor, went to Topeka with an effective force of dragoons and artillery, and ordered the legislators to disperse. To the administration at Washington this move was distasteful. The President
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1 Spring's Kansas, p. 168.
2 Phillips's Conquest of Kansas, p. 313.
3 Life of John Brown, p. 108.
4 Conquest of Kansas, p. 359.
5 Life of John Brown, p. 108; see also private letter cited by Wilson, Senate debate, July 9th.

and cabinet looked upon the assemblage as a "town-meeting," and did not relish the idea of its dispersion, under their authority, at the point of the bayonet.1
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1 Spring's Kansas, p. 135; also the endorsement, August 27th, of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, on Sumner's letter of August 11th, Senate Documents, 3d Session 34th Congress vol. iii.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.2. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].