The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-22 00:00:00

THE STATE OF KANSAS.

Thomas H. Gladstone, Esq., of Stockwell-lodge,
Surrey, has addressed a second letter to the editor
of the Times, of which the following is a copy :
"Sir,—ln your issue of the 11 h of October, you d►d
me the favour to insert a narrative of personal experiences
in Kansas, designed to exhibit the lamentable condition
into which political strife had plunged that territory in
the month of May last.
" The publication of that letter has occasioned me the
necessity of replying to very many questions, of which
friends have desired a solution, in; order the better to
comprehend ithei extraordinary anomalies which such. a
condition'of affairs implies.
"In the belief that many of your readers may have
felt equally at a loss for a sufficient explanation, I will
endeavour, in the form of question and answer, to sum
up as briefly as possible the substance of one or two of
these conversations, and thus anticipate probably some
of those inquiries which may have suggested themselves
to the minds of others.

"The first and most natural question is—if such fear-
ful outrages as every mail brings es intelligence of are
being committed in Kansas, why are not the perpetrators
of these enormities brought to justice ? Is there no
judge, no jury, no law to which appeal can be made for
protection ?
"The answer is simp!e. First, the man is wanting
who possesses boldness or rashness enough to bring the
offending parties to justice. Murder and cold-blooded
assassination were of almost daily occurrence at the time
of my visit ; but whoever should repel.: such a case
would be at once a marked man, and in all probability,
before the day expired, his life would be the penalty for
his imprudence in the cause of right.
"But, yet more, supposing the offender to be brought
to justice, what is the judge, of what character the jury,
and, what the law, by which he is to be tried ?
"The judge would be such a man as Judge Lecompte
—the Jeffreys of the territory. Or, if not the chief of
the bloody assizes 'of Kansas, it would be some other
minion of the slave power, panting after the extermina-
tion of every Free State advocate, and pledged by his
oath of office to sustain the must offensive measures
which the slave power has introduced. It cannot be
otherwise-"for every public office is occupied by the
most resolute adherents of the pro-slavery cause ; and,
lest one should creep in of a different stamp, a test is
demanded, contrary to the constitution of the
United States, of every cand!dee for office, accord-
ing to which he is required to subscribe an oath,
solemnly
.swearing upon the Holy Evangelists of Al-
mighty God' that he will 'support and sustain the
provisions of the act entitled An Act to Organise the
Territories rf Nebraska and Kansas,' and the provisions
of the law of the United States, commonly known as the
'Fugitive Slave Law.' '( Vide Statutes of the Terri-
tory of Kansas,' page 488.) Thus, by the law of the
territory, no man can sit on the bench or hold any other
public office unless he have first specially endorsed and
pledged himself to sustain the two most extreme Pro-
slavery measures that can possibly be cited.
"If such be the judge, the jury would also be of a
character no lest accurately defined by statute. What
is the law of Kansas concerning jurors ?—' No person
who is conscientiously opposed to the holding of slaves
or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this
territory, shall be a juror in any cause in which the
right to hold any person in slavery is involved, nor in
any cause in whichany injury done to, or committed by,
any slave is in issue, nor iu any criminal proceeding for
the violation of any law enacted for the protection of
slave property, and for the punishment of crime com-
mitted against the right to such property.' (Statutes
of Kansas, p. 378.) Again, by the first section of the
act, the power is placed in the hands of 'the marshal,
sheriff, or other officer, to summon a sufficient number
of jurors' (p. 377). With such a law, and with discre-
tionary power vested in such hands, it will be seen at
once what kind of jury must of necessity be procured.
" And, if such be the character of judge and jury,
what are the laws they have to dispense ? Take a
sample :

If any person print, write, introduce into, publish, or
circulate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written,
published, or circulated, or shall knowingly aid or assist
in bringing into, printing, publishing, or circulating,
within this territory, any book, paper, pamphlet, maga-
zine, hand-bill, or circular, containing any statements,
arguments, opinion, sentiment, doctrine, advice, or innu-
endo, calculated to produce a disorderly, dangerous, or
rebellions disaffection among the slaves in this territory,
or to induce such slaves to e3capo from the service of their
masters, or to resist their authority, he shall be guilty of
felony, and be punished by imprisonment at hard labour
for a term not less than live years.' (Statutes, cap. 151,
sec. 11.)

`lf anylfree person, by speaking or writing, assert, or
maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in
this territory, or shall introduce into this territory,
print, publish, write, circulate, or cause to be introduced
into this territory, written, printed, published, or circu-
lated in this territory, any book, paper, magazine, pam-
phlet or circular containing any denial of the right of per-
sons to hold slaves in this territory, such person shall be
deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at
hard labour for a term of not less than two years.' (Laws,
chap. 151, sec-12.)
" And what kind of hard labour is the Northern
man to undergo who should be lucklessly brought
before, a Kansas judge and convicted of denying the
right to hold slaves in the territory'? It is defined
in the same code, where, after providing that every
person so sentenced shall' be deemed a convict, and
shall be put to bard labour on the streets, roads,
public buildings, or other public works of the terri-
tory, the act continues
And the keeper shall cause such convict, while engaged
at such labour, to be securely confined by a chain six feet
in lengtb,of not less than 4-16ths nor more than iths of an
inch links, with a round ball of iron of not less than four
nor more thanl six inches in diameter attached, which chain
shall be securely fastened to the ancle of such convict with
a strong lock and key, &c.' (Statutes chap. 22, sec. 2.)
" For greater offences against slave property ' the
law provides, of course, a severer penalty. To aid in
any rebellion of slaves against their masters, to
bring into the territory any book or tract calculated to
excise rebellion on the part of slaves, free negroes, or
mulattoes, to carry out of the territory a slave belonging
to aaother, or to assist in the same, are all capital of-
fences, to be punished by death. But as the utterance
of even a syllable against the right of bolding slaves is
made punishable by two years' imprisonment and hard
labour on the public roads, with a chain of six feet and
a round ball of iron attached to the ankle, it will at once
be seen whether the law was made for the Pro-slavery or
for the Free State man. Add to this the fact that every
act of the Free State party, if viewed in the light of the
laws as interpreted by the Federal Government, is an
act et treason against the Federal Power, and it will be
perceived what opportunity is given for the most cruel
despotism and the grossest wrong to take refuge in the
name and sanction of the law. 'Law,' in fact, was the
word constantly in the mouths of the self-styled border
ruffians, with whom I myself came daily into contact in
Kansas. So far from appealing to it, everything they
did, every enormity they committed, was done in the
name of the law of the land. The constant taunt
thrown out against the Free State party and the chief
difficulty they themselves experienced was the opposition
in which they stood to the recognised law. Law and
order' became the watchword and war cry of the most
lawless in the territory ; and the words 'a posse of law
and order men' were synonymous with a company of
freebootere and murderers ranging the country in search
of their po'itical opponents. The law, therefore, was all
on one side. And it will be seen that, with enactments
demanding the conviction of all who spoke or acted
against slavery, and a judge and jury no less desiring
their extermination, the wronged Free State man,
tboueh he should have been struck down in the high-
way and robbed of his all, had more to lose than to gain
by a recourse to the legal power.
"But by what possibility could laws so glaringly un-
reasonable and unjust become the laws of the land ? By
what power or authority were they enacted ?
"Answer.—They were enacted by a falsely-chosen
but authoritatively recognised territorial Legislature.
This
Legislature, viewed by the general Government as
the voice of the people, becomes of necessity lawgiver to
the people of the territory ; and not only gives the laws,
but assurate; to itself the right to define its own autho-
rity. In this way the legal existence of this assembly
as a legislative body has been determined by itself, and,
being backed by the -United States' troops, the so-called
Kansas Legislature has hard' almost all power in its
own bands. This is the Legislature for which the
votes were taken on the 30th of March, 1855, and
which, first meeting at Pawnee, was afterwards re-
moved to the Shawnee Mission, to be more conve-
niently near to the Missouri border. It is true, the
election was repudiated as fraudulent and unfair by
the free State population, and that they acted indepen-
dently of it in causing a fresh election to take place
on the 9th Oct., 1855, which resulted in the conven-
e State G wernmente which met at
tion for organic trig
Topeka, and the subsequent election of State officers
and members of the General Assembly. When this
Assembly met the second time at Topeka, on the 4th
July last, it will be remembered that Colonel Sumner
forcibly dissolve(, the Assembly at the head of a con-
siderable body of United States troops, at the same
time indieating
view of the proceeding by
stating that it was ` the most painful act of his life.'
But how, it may next he asked, is this charge esta-
blished,of
of the Legislature
to which the
Meet gives the sanction of its approve a d the
its troops being thus falsely and fraurdouolfs.ntlLy
ocuhgosbeeniore
"This fact aden;te of very easy p
the heat election in Kansas a secret socientys
the
ed b,eßenluien
existence in Missouri, generally known
Lodge,' the avowed purpose of which
iwas, bya sys-
tematic organisation, to control the elections nKansas
or elsewhere. By this agency immense armed bands of
men from Missouri were poured itto Kansas, and, under
the generalship of efficient leaders, so distributed through
the electral districts as to outnumber and overawe the
resident voters. The character of these men may
chief be
inferred from an address delivered by one of their
leaders, General Stringfellow. As General Stringfellow
is the speaker in the Legislative Assembly to which I
have referred, the extract will have interest also for those
who desire to compare the style of address adopted by
the presiding officer in the Kansas Legislature with
that, commonly heard in our own Houses of Parlia-
ment :

4 I tell yon to mark every scoundrel among you that is
the least tainted with free.soilism or abolitioMers, and ex-
terminate him. Neither give nor take quarter from the
rascals. I propose to mark them in this house, and on
the present occasion, so you may crush them out. To those
who have qualms of conscience as to violating 'the laws
State or national, the time has come when such impositions
a
r ii
mist be disregarded, as your rights and
danger; and I advise you, one and all, to enter every elec-
tion district in Kansas, in defiance of Reeder and his vile
myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and
revolver. Neither give nor take quarter, as our case de.
mands it. It is enough that the slaveholding.interest wills
it, from which there is no appeal. What right has
Go-
vernor Reeder to rule Misevuriana in Kanias ? His prods.

mation and prescribed oath must be repudiated. It is your
interest to do so. Mind that slavery is established where
t is not prohibited.'
" nd as their leader advised them so they did: They
neither gave nor t lok quarter; they allowed no qualms
of conscience as to violating laws • and they entered
.every electoral district in Kansa'. and, in defiance of the
rightful governor, voted at the point of the bowie-knife
and the revolver. The result was a majority, alete..st as
ten to one, in favour of the pro-slavery candidate, Gene-
ral Whitfield. Exact returns from each district have
sincis.been obtained by the Committee of Investigation,
and from their report presented to Congress I will
extract one or two examples of the fraud practised
by this invading army. The 7th District is a remote
settlement, as yet very sparsely inhabited, and contain-
ing by census not more than 53 voters. In this district
alone no less than 597 votes were cast for Whitfield, and
seven for another candidate, making in all 604, of which
it has been ascertained that not more than 20 were legal,
the remaining 584 being consequently illegal votes. In
the 11th District, Marysville, 'the total number of white
inhabitants, including men, women, and children, was
36, of whom 24 were voters. Yet the poll-lists in this
district show that 245 votes were cast at this election !
• • . . By a comparison of the census-roll with the
poll-books it appears that but 7 resident settlers voted ;
and 238 votes were illegally and fraudulently given !'
"And what was done at the election of a delegate to
Congress was repeated at the election of the members of
the Legislative Assembly. By the report of the Com-
mittee of Investigation it appears that the proportion of
illegal to legal votes was as 4,908 to 1,410 ! From the
census it appears there were but 2,905 voters in the ter-
ritory ; yet 5,427 votes were recorded on the Pro-Slavery
side alone ! Many of the Missourians returned the same
night, after giving their vote, to their own State. At
Leavenworth a great number came down by steam-
boat from Weston, and having effected their object
returned by the same boat. Many affirmed their right
to vote as residents, although they might have been
only an hour in the territory, and had their home in
Missouri. The enormities committed by these armed
bands were fearful. Some we read of standing around
the polling-place and saying that no difficulty would
be male it they were allowed to vote in peace, bat
that they were determined to vote anyhow, and that
each one of them was prepared for eight rounds with-
out loading, and would go to the ninth round with
the butcher-knife.' If the judges who presided over
the elections refused to receive their votes without
administering the oath of residence they held their
pistols at their heads, while they appointed fresh
judges from their own number and proceeded with
the election, masters of the position.' So violent
was their hatred to the oath that any who professed
themselves ready to take it were threatened with in-
stant death, amid cries of Shoot him !' Cut his guts
out !' &c.
One of them,' we read in the report of the
commissioners,
Mr. J. M. Macey, was asked if he would take the oath ;
and, upon his replying that he would if the judges required
it, he was draped through the crowd away from the polls
amid cries of 'Sill the d—d nigger thief,'' Cat his throat,'
Tear his heart out,' Etc. After they got him to the out-
side of the crowd they stood around him with cocked re-
volvers and drawn bowie-knives ' • one man putting a knife
to his breast so that it touched him ; another holding a
cocked pistol to his ear, while another struck at him with
a club.'

"The whole of the voluminous evidence accompany-
ing the report submitted to Congress goes to establish
a succession of similar enormities in each of the polling
districts. These investigations were being carried on
within two doors of the place where I was myself stay-
ing when in Leavenworth ; and it was sufficient to hear
the manner in which the Missourians affirmed their
right to come over from their own State and vote in the
territory of Kansas, and their determination to do so on
every occasion and at all hazards, to understand the
violence with whices they would assert that right when
confronted with their political opponents at the polling
places.
" Another question may be suggested on this topic
—By what right do these Missourians or others from
neighbouring States vote in the Kansas elections ?
" Icy no right whatever, except that of might. The
Missourians have no more right to vote in Kansas than
the voters in Middlesex have, after using their rightful
suffrage in their own county, to cross to Surrey and re-
cord their votes a second time, with a pistol at the head
of the election officer, in order to control the Surrey
elections. Indeed, as the States of the Union are by
their constitution perfectly independent of one another
and self-governed, the parallel would be truer if we were
to picture an army of Frenchmen, larger in number
than all our voters who should, at the point of the sword,
choose for us our representatives, and return without
exception as our rulers men from among themselves or
pledged to their own political sentiments. So much was
it an act of main force and illegal oppression that among
the conclusions which the Committee of Investigation
report as established by the testimony they submit,
they give the first place to the following :
' That each election in the territory, held under the
organic or alleged territorial law, has been carried by
organised invasion from the State of Missouri, by which
the people of the territory have been prevented from ex-
ercising the rights secured to them by the organic law.'
" And as the fruit of an organised invasion they con-
clude—

Secondly, that the alleged territorial Legislature was an
illegally constituted body, and had no power to pass valid
laws, and their enactments are therefore null and void.'

" While, however, in the first instances, the inter
ference of the Missourians was wholly illegal, the Legis-
lature thus illegally constituted took care to legalise the
act for the future. Hence we find them enacting in the
act instituting a poll-tax :
Sect. 1. That every free white male above the age of
21 years who shall pay to the proper officer in Kansas ter-
ritory the sum of $1 as a poll-tax, and shall produce to the
judges of any election within and for the territory of
Kansas a receipt showing the payment of said poll-tax,
shall be deemed a legal voter, and shall be entitled to vote
at any election in said territory during the year for which
the same shall have been paid, provided that the right of
suffrage shall be exercised only by citizens of the United
States and those who have declared on oath their intention
to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support
the constitution of the United States and the provisions of
the act organising the territory of Kansas.'
" In other words, by the payment of a sine‘le dollar
any citizen of any of the United States can purchase a
voting power in Kansas for a twelvemonth, provided he
pledges himself to the support of the Organic Act. In
contrast to this, in the 11th section (statutes, p. 282) it
is expressly enacted that while every inhabitant of
Kansas paying a territorial tax is a qualified elector, yet
should he, on being challenged to take au oath to sus-
tain the provisions of the Nebraska-Kansas Bill and the
Fugitive Slave Law, ' refuse to take such an oath or
affirmation, the vote of such person shall be rejected.'
" Hence, in the new election of members of the Legis-
lature, the results of whica we daily expect to hear, the
Pro-slavery Missourian who pays a dollar receives for it
a vote, while the Free Settler in Kansas, though an
owner of land in the territory, is denied his right of suf-
fra2e by the territorial law. The candidates, to be
eligible at this election, are also required by the same
law to take oath in support of the Fugitive Slave Law.
(Statutes, p. 332,) There is little room for speculation,
therefore, as to what election results the next American
mail will brin, us from Kansas.
" At the risk of writing that which is less generally
interesting I have presented in this letter numerous
extracts from public documents. I have deemed it right
to do this because the whole value of the present com-
munication rests on the authority whence the statements
are derived. The reforeoces I have made are to the
`Statutes of the Territory of Kansas,' issued by the
legislative body, to which, though chosen by the inha-
bitants of another state, the Government at Washington
gives the sanction of its approval and its military aid,
and to the report and evidence of 'the Special Committee
appointed to investigate the troubles in the territory of
Kansas'—a report which, though dissented from by one
member of the committee, contains testimony which can
never be overthrown or gainsaid.
"My simple object has been to show that the dark
deeds of which I was an eyewitness in Kansas, some of
which I detailed in my former letter, are no darker than
the public acts of the slave-power in that territory, as
exhibited in the archives of its House of Asse ..bly ; and
that the fearful anarchy and unrestrained lawlessness
which reign throughout the territory find both their
parallel and their key in the flagrant unrighteousness of
their legal enactments."