Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 14

The party in power at Lecompton had said to the President at Was.h.i.+ngton: "We are sick of Northern Governors. They won't do to tie to. For pity's sake give us a man from the South." And so a Southern Governor was given them in the person of Robert J. Walker. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, said to the Jews: "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins." So this Lecompton _party_ found the little finger of this Southern Governor to be thicker than the loins of Gov. Geary.

Mr. W. stood so high in public position that no man stood higher than himself, save alone the President. He had been a Senator from Mississippi, and had been Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Pierce's Cabinet. The complications of this Kansas question had become such as to call for a man of the highest rank and ability. The main object of Mr. Walker's mission to Kansas was to induce the Free State people to vote at the Territorial elections, which alone were appointed by the government at Was.h.i.+ngton, and recognized by it. Until he could accomplish this, nothing was done toward the pacification of the Territory. To induce them to do this, he pledged to the Free State men a fair election. But he found that he was speaking to ears that could not hear. He had said in his inaugural address with all apparent fairness:

I can not doubt that the Convention, after having framed a State const.i.tution, will submit it for ratification or rejection by a majority of the actual _bona fide_ resident settlers of Kansas.

With these views well known to the President and Cabinet, and approved by them, I accepted the appointment of Governor of Kansas; my instructions from the President, through the Secretary of State, under date of the 30th of March last, sustain the regular Legislature of the Territory in a.s.sembling a convention to form a const.i.tution, and they express the opinion of the President that when such a const.i.tution shall be submitted to the people of the Territory, they must be protected in their right of voting for or against that instrument; and the fair expression of the popular will must not be interrupted by fraud or violence.

This seemed very fair, but what did it amount to? The people knew that the Governor must consent to be a mere cat's paw and convenience of these conspirators, or else be unceremoniously thrust aside; and that the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton would sustain them and not him. This had been the fate of Reeder, of Shannon and of Geary, and this also would be the fate of the present Governor. Dr. Gihon, on behalf of Mr.

Geary, had bitterly complained that there was not a single officer in the Territory responsible either to the people or to the Governor; that all were the appointees of the Legislature, and responsible to it alone. The Lecompton Legislature had pa.s.sed a bill calling a convention to frame a State const.i.tution; and Gov. Geary had vetoed the bill because it made no provision for submitting the const.i.tution, when framed, to a vote of the people; and the Legislature had pa.s.sed the bill over his veto, and now what power had Gov. Walker in the matter more that Gov. Geary?

An event happened at that time that was a nine days' wonder, and a nine days' talk among the people; and yet it does not seem to have been put on record in any extant history of the period. The Governor had sought the privilege of addressing the Free State people on this question of voting, which he made his hobby. It was at a meeting at Big Springs. Gen. Lane was present, as also were a large number of Free State men, and the Governor had pressed on them, as the only road out of their difficulties, the necessity of voting at those Territorial elections, which alone were recognized by the government at Was.h.i.+ngton.

Gen. Lane arose to reply, and in a speech of terrible energy and power he arraigned the Lecompton party for all their wrongs and outrages; then, when he had reached the climax of his argument, he leaned forward, and, looking at Mr. Walker from beneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows with his deepset, piercing black eyes, and shaking at him his long bony finger, his whole frame quivering with pa.s.sion, he said in his deep guttural tones, which seemed more like the growl of a savage wild beast than the voice of a human being: "_Gov-er-nor Wal-ker, y-o-u c-a-n-'t con-t-r-ol your allies!_"

The effect was prodigious; and the Free State men were swept away as with a whirlwind. Even Gov. Walker felt the force of the appeal. But he showed himself a brave man; and came back resolutely to the battle.

He said: "_I am your Governor!_ You must admit that I have at least a _legal_ right to control my allies, so far as to give you a fair election; and I pledge you my word and honor that I will do it. Now try me! and see if I do not keep my word!"

The Free State men began to falter and to ask each other, "Is it not best to try the Governor, and see if he will be as good as his word?"

And from this time forward there began to appear a division in the Free State ranks; which sometimes grew to be bitter and acrimonious.

This division had indeed begun to appear one year before, when on the Fourth of July Col. Sumner had dispersed the Free State Legislature at Topeka. Gov. Robinson was at that time a prisoner, and was, therefore, not present; but he said in his next annual message as Free State Governor:

When your bodies met, pursuant to adjournment, in July last, your a.s.sembly was interfered with and broken up by a large force of United States troops in battle array, who drove you hence, in gross violation of those const.i.tutional rights _which it was your duty to have protected_.

Wm. A. Phillips, correspondent of the _New York Tribune,_ and afterwards a member of Congress, was a man terribly in earnest, and he did, on the above-named Fourth of July, in a speech, take the position that we ought to fight for our rights and defy Col. Sumner and his dragoons. The men that demanded that we should fight said: "We can take possession of the houses and fire out of the windows, and thus avoid the onset of Col. Sumner's cavalry." But the majority said: "We are loyal to the old flag, and in no case, and under no circ.u.mstances will be found fighting against it." It was this more conservative majority that began to demand that the Free State men should listen to Gov. Walker's overtures and vote at the coming election.

Gen. Lane had been uncompromising in defying the Territorial laws. He had said: "Gov. Walker has said, 'Vote next week.' What for? Have we not made our const.i.tution? And do not the people of freedom like it?

Can't we submit this to the people, and who wants another?" But now he had become at the first reticent, and finally said: "Vote." This singular man that constantly kept on exhibiting his desperate determination to resist the bogus laws, really kept in his heart the one supreme purpose to make himself the oracle of the prevailing sentiment among the Free State men. When, therefore, Gen. Lane said, "Let us vote," it was good evidence that this had become the prevailing sentiment among the Free State party.

A convention was held at Gra.s.shopper Falls, August 26, 1857, at which this was the main question, and it was decided in favor of voting at the coming election of Territorial officers. The Hon. Henry Wilson had recently visited Kansas from Ma.s.sachusetts, and he had earnestly entreated the Free State men to vote. Phillips, Conway and Redpath still protested against it. Gov. Robinson, however, gave his voice in favor of voting.

An election had already been-held June 15th to elect delegates to the Lecompton Const.i.tutional Convention, at which the Free State men had taken no part. Fifteen Free State counties had in this election been disfranchished, no election having been ordered in them.

At the election of Territorial officers, held October 6, 1857, both parties turned out The Free State men cast 7,887 votes for the Territorial Legislature. The Lecompton party was reported to have cast 6,466 votes. But though the Free State men had a numerical majority of votes, yet the districts had been so arranged that the above returns gave a majority in the Legislature to the Lecompton party. Johnson county, bordering on Missouri, had been united in one district with Douglas county, in which Lawrence is situated, and this district had been given eight members. Oxford precinct, in Johnson county, was a place of not over a dozen houses, and polled 124 votes for towns.h.i.+p officers, yet it reported 1,628 votes for the Lecompton party. When, however, Gov. Walker and Mr. Stanton came to canva.s.s the votes they threw out this Oxford vote. They also set aside 1,200 fraudulent votes in McGee county. The vote at Kickapoo, equally fraudulent, was also set aside. This gave a majority to the Free State party in the Lecompton Territorial Legislature, and thus Gov. Walker redeemed his pledge that the people should have a fair election.

Judge Cato felt that it was time to come to the rescue of his friends, and issued a writ directed to "Robert J. Walker, Governor of Kansas Territory, and Frederick P. Stanton, secretary of the same,"

commanding these gentlemen to issue certificates of election to the men who appeared to be elected according to the original returns. Gov.

Walker good-naturedly refused to obey the order of the court, offering to submit to arrest for contempt of court, and tendering the judge _a.

posse_ of United States troops to aid in making the arrest. The judge began to see that he had been making a fool of himself, and dropped the subject. These Territorial judges had shown themselves capable of any excess of villainy, and had been a sure refuge in every time of trouble to this Lecompton party; but even the courts had now failed them, and these "border ruffian" judges were only laughed at by this Southern Governor. One year before, these conspirators had a.s.sembled an army to drive out the Free State settlers, and to give the Territory into the hands of the South; but Gov. Geary had interfered to thwart their purpose, and, what was worse, a majority of the leaders of that army, men of note along the Missouri border, had declared themselves in sympathy with Mr. Geary. Then they had asked for a Southern Governor, for would not he be true to the South? And now even this man had failed them, and had given the control of the Territorial Legislature into the hands of the Philistines! They were indeed in evil case. It seemed as if heaven and earth had combined against them, and that only h.e.l.l was on their side. One last chance remained. If this was a desperate chance, it must be remembered they were playing a desperate game--they would make Kansas a slave State in spite of the Governor, in spite of the Territorial Legislature, and in spite of the people of Kansas.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Convention that had been called to frame a State Const.i.tution, and in which election the Free State men had taken no part, had met to do its work in September of 1857, and finished in November; but to the last it refused to make provision to submit the Const.i.tution, when framed, to a vote of the people, for acceptance or rejection. But in place of this thing, had virtually said to them: "You must accept this Const.i.tution whether you like it or not. We will allow you to vote _for_ the Const.i.tution with slavery; or, _for_ the Const.i.tution without slavery; but you must vote in every contingency _for_ the Const.i.tution."

But admitting the people had voted for the Const.i.tution _without_ slavery, still a trap was set for them in the following proviso, which would still remain an integral part of the Const.i.tution.

"If, upon such examination of such poll-books it shall appear that a majority of the legal votes cast at said election be in favor of the 'Const.i.tution with no slavery,' then the article providing for slavery shall be stricken from this Const.i.tution, and slavery shall no longer exist in the State of Kansas; _except that the right of property in slaves now in this Territory shall in no manner be interfered with_."

Thus, which ever way they should vote, Kansas would still remain a slave State. Of course the Free State men did not walk into the trap, but staid away from the election, which was ordered for December 21, 1857; and the Const.i.tution was adopted by a strictly one-sided vote.

And now Gov. Walker began to realize in the bitterness of his heart that "uneasy lies the head of him that wears a crown." He had staked his manhood, his veracity, his honor, his everything, that this Const.i.tution, when framed, should be submitted to a vote of the people for acceptance or rejection, and now he was to be put to shame in the eyes of the whole world; and Gen. Lane was proved a true prophet when he had said to the Governor with such withering power: "Gov. Walker, you can't control your allies." Mr. Walker was able to show a private letter from President Buchanan, a.s.suring him in the most positive terms, that this Const.i.tution, when framed, should be submitted to a vote of the people; but of what avail was such a promise? There was a power behind the throne at Was.h.i.+ngton stronger than the throne itself; and Gov. W. was able to see what a hollow mockery was that power which he supposed himself to possess.

The Governor made known to the people that he would be absent on business for three or four weeks; and he went away to Was.h.i.+ngton, never more to return. There was neither pity nor justice for him there; and in unspeakable disgust he resigned; and Mr. Stanton took the oath of office and reigned as Governor _for one month_. Then he also was removed, and Gov. Denver took his place. Thus, five Kansas Governors had each in their turn been officially decapitated. Stanton had been superseded by Denver because he had called a special session of the now Free State Legislature, and it had ordered an immediate election to vote for or against the Lecompton Const.i.tution, and at this election 10,226 votes were polled against it.

It had been intended that under whip and spur Kansas should be admitted by Congress as a slave State before the time should arrive for the regular a.s.sembling of the Territorial Legislature, which had now pa.s.sed into the hands of the Free State men; but by calling a special session of the Legislature, he had enabled that body to order an immediate election, that should give official evidence that an overwhelming majority of the people were opposed to the Lecompton Const.i.tution.

And now Stephen A. Douglas, at Was.h.i.+ngton, came forward as State Senator from Illinois and made it impossible that Kansas should be admitted as a State unless that doc.u.ment should first be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection. A bill to this effect was finally pa.s.sed by Congress. It was called the English bill. It proffered a magnificent bribe if the people would accept the Lecompton Const.i.tution--five million five hundred thousand acres of public land should be given to Kansas; besides other munificent donations. But the English bill also contained a menace as well as a bribe. It threatened that if the people rejected this offer they should be remanded back for an indefinite period, to all the miseries of a Territorial life.

In the face of such a menace, and tempted by such a bribe, the whole voting population of the Territory turned out at the election, which was ordered to be held August 2, 1858. At this election, 1,788 votes were cast for the Const.i.tution, and 9,512 against it. From whence then came this overwhelming majority? The majority of the Free State party was about two to one. "Wilder's Annals," the best extant Free State authority, puts it at this. "The Free State or Republican party has carried every election in Kansas since this date (1857), usually by two to one." But here is a majority of six to one; and we must go outside of the Free State or Republican party to find it. Dr. John H.

Stringfellow wrote at this time to the Was.h.i.+ngton Union against the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Const.i.tution. He says: "To do so will break down the Democratic party at the North, and seriously endanger the interests and peace of Missouri and Kansas, if not of the whole Union."

Judge Tutt, of St. Joseph, Mo., had said to the South Carolinians: "I was born in Virginia, and have lived forty years in Missouri. I am a slave-holder, and a Pro-slavery man; and I desire Kansas to be made a slave State, _if it can be done by honorable means_. But you will break down the cause you are seeking to build up." And Judge Tutt voiced the sentiments of a large number of Pro-slavery men and slave-holders in Kansas.

The city of Atchison gave a majority of votes against the Lecompton Const.i.tution; and Atchison county gave a majority of almost three to one against it; and Leavenworth city, which two years before had been the theater of such murders, riots and robberies, gave a majority against the proposition of the English bill of more than ten to one, notwithstanding the huge bribe offered if the people would accept it.

We are writing these "Recollections" for posterity as well as for the present generation. It is only the verdict of posterity that will justly estimate the men and the influences that went to make up the final result of the early Kansas struggle. Up to the present time the writers that have written on this subject have been too near the battle, and themselves too much a party in it, to write with perfect impartiality. Southern and Pro-slavery writers and speakers have not been able to admit that Southern men were the original wrong-doers; while Northern and Free State writers have not been able to rise to the level of such fair dealing, as to admit that when the decisive vote was cast that determined the question of freedom and slavery in Kansas, as absolutely as it had already been determined in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the Free State people were indebted to the n.o.bility of heart and elevation of mind, displayed by Southern and Pro-slavery men in making the vote so overwhelming as to put the question beyond the possibility of controversy forever; yet this was done in the unprecedented vote of six to one, cast in condemnation of the Lecompton Const.i.tution.

From this time forward the two parties that had been struggling with each other for four years in such fierce antagonism were dead; and in their place have appeared the two political parties that are found throughout the United States; and the lines of difference between the men of the South and the men of the North have been as completely obliterated in thirty years, as they were obliterated in Old England, between Saxon and Norman, after 500 years of savage strife and turmoil.

And now, if the superior races of the world have been formed by the amalgamation of the kindred stocks, may we not believe that Providence has been preparing in this central State a people that shall bear a distinguished part in that mighty battle that is so swiftly coming to the American nation, in which we will be called to fight against a Christian barbarism and a paganized Christianity, for all that is precious in our Christian civilization, and for all that is true and good in our American form of government?

Rome fell under an invasion by foreign barbarians; so an inundation of the barbarians of the world is pouring in on us, and threatens to swallow us up; it is like the flood the dragon poured out of his mouth. Of our duties growing out of this catastrophe we shall write hereafter.

The writer of these "Recollections" is a fallible man, like other fallible man. He has shown at least this, that he is ready to stand by his convictions, living and dying; and he holds this conviction fixed and immutable, that there is a crisis coming on us of overtopping and overwhelming magnitude, and demanding the American people should come together and look each other honestly in the face, that they may take into their hearts this weight and extent of the reasons that call that they should join in united effort for the salvation of the nation and the conversion of the world; and that this does not allow that there shall be anything of flimsy, shallow, or hypocritical concealment of the facts of our history.

The world has had abundant experience of these border feuds. Scotland had her feuds between her Highlands and Lowlands. In Ireland there has been unceasing enmity for 250 years between her Protestant and Catholic populations. The French and English peoples of Canada are never at peace with each other; and now there is a feud that can not be healed between England and Ireland. In some of the mountain regions of the Southern States, where the people yet retain the clannish temper of their Scotch and Irish ancestors, there are neighborhood enmities that go down from father to son, from generation to generation; and that issue in such fist fights, brawls, and mobs, as sometimes to tax the whole energy of the public authorities to suppress them. And now, with such foundation laid for the indefinite perpetuation of similar feuds in Kansas, we do argue that it has manifested on the part of our population no ordinary qualities of heart and soul, that they were so soon able to eliminate from among themselves their turbulent and dangerous elements.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The men that had settled in Kansas were generally poor, and few had any reserved fund from which to draw their support, but were literally dependent for their daily bread on their labor day by day; and to take away the horses of such a man was literally to take the bread out of the mouths of his children. Free State men and Pro-slavery men had each in turn been thus despoiled and compelled to flee the Territory; or if they remained they were paralyzed and unfitted for work.

But the spring and summer of 1857 had brought a new order of things.

Gov. Geary had put an end to these disorders, and the presence of S.

C. Pomeroy and other Free State men in Atchison was an additional guarantee of peace and security. As a result the Kansas squatters had gone to work with a will. Old things had pa.s.sed away, and all things had become new. There did indeed remain a chronic state of disorder in Southeastern Kansas; but this was local and exceptional.

But religious and thoughtful men looked far beyond this question of what shall we eat and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed? Intemperate habits were growing fast on the people. Coa.r.s.e profanity and ribald speech were becoming so common as to be the rule and not the exception. Fathers and mothers began to tremble when they thought what their boys were coming to; and this turned their thoughts to the question of schools and churches. Then all the denominations simultaneously began their work. A church was organized at Leavenworth by our brethren, in which S. A. Marshall and W. S. Yohe were the leading members. Dr. Marshall had formerly been a resident of Pennsylvania, and W. S. Yohe was from the South, a slave-holder, a man of considerable wealth, and of eminent personal excellence.

The church that had been built up in 1855 at Mt. Pleasant had fallen to pieces in the troublous times, and was now reorganized at what has come to be known as "The Old Union School House," a place that has been hallowed to precious memories, because of the great revival that took place under the labors of D. S. Burnett in the year 1858.

The brethren that lived along the valley of the Stranger Creek and its tributaries, and that had met to wors.h.i.+p two years before under the spreading elms that lined its bottoms, now organized themselves into a church at a village called Pardee. This ambitious little town was located on the high prairie; but it shared the fate of many other Kansas towns, equally aspiring and equally ill-fated. When the railroads were built they followed the courses of the streams, and it was left out in the cold; but for a time it was the center of social, political and religious influence in the county outside of Atchison.

Among the brethren that had been in Kansas from its first settlement, and whom we have not mentioned, were John and Jacob Graves, brothers from Tennessee, who have since grown rich in worldly goods, and richer still in good works. There were also Brethren Landrum and Sch.e.l.l, and many others whom we can not name. In the fall of 1857 came Lewis Brockman, who loved the church more than he loved his own life. He was brother to that Col. Thomas Brockman conspicuous in the Mormon war in Illinois, which resulted in the exodus of the Mormons to Salt Lake, there to build up a kingdom that cherishes a deadly and undying hatred to the United States, its people, and its inst.i.tutions. Norman Dunshee, now Professor in Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, also came to Kansas from the Western Reserve Eclectic Inst.i.tute at Hiram, O., in the fall of 1859, and settled at Pardee. Dr. S. G. Moore, of Camp Point, 111., who came in the spring of 1857, was brother-in-law to Peter Garrett; and these two men were of one heart and one soul in their aspirations for a larger liberality on the part of Disciples and a better order of things in our churches; but they had to take up the sad refrain so oft repeated: "We have found the Old Adam too strong for the young Melancthon." Dr. Moore was a man that, when he knew he was in the right, pushed his enterprises with such a rigorous purpose as sometimes to alienate from himself men who might have been won by a more complaisant temper. His stay in Kansas was limited. The dwelling in which he lived was struck by lightning, and Bro. and Sister Moore were seriously injured. From these injuries Sister Moore has never fully recovered. With broken health she became homesick, and pined to be among her kindred. Moreover, a valuable farm that Dr. Moore had sold at Camp Point fell back into his hands, and he felt constrained to return to Illinois in 1861. With such elements of power the reader will not think it strange that we should go to work with a will to recover the ground we had lost in this social and political turmoil and religious inaction.

The writer did not travel much abroad this summer; he found too much to do at home. We had meetings every Lord's day, and had frequent additions by letter and by baptism. One day, as my manner was, I gave an invitation to sinners to obey the gospel. There had been no indication, however remote, that any would desire baptism; but my daughter, Rosetta, now thirteen years of age, came forward and demanded to be baptized. Two years before I had brought her, then eleven years of age, with her mother, to Kansas. Some part of this time we had spent in the very presence of death; and Rosetta and her mother would not have thought it strange if a company of men had come into the house at night with murderous intent. I have not told in these "Recollections" how many times I felt it expedient to be away from home; and then Rosetta was her mother's only companion. Of young company such as girls usually have at her age, she had almost none. We had talked of these daily occurring tragedies until they had lost both their terror and their novelty. These certainly were not fitting surroundings for a little girl, intelligent and thoughtful beyond her years, and of an unduly sensitive and nervous organization. But she was her mother's only girl, this was our only home, and, coming out of the furnace fires of such a life, we could not think it strange that she should feel the need of a Heavenly Father in whom she could trust, of $ Savior's arm on which she could lean, and of a home in the church where she could find help and sympathy.