The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-05-01
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR sILLIMAN.
New HAVEN, Conn.,, AprH I6, 1856.

New HAVEN, CoNN., AprH IG, 1856.
To tie Hon. John p. Hale:
DEAR Sir: Observing that you have promptly
repealed a Islander recently uttered on the floor
of the Senate, / avail myself of the occasion TO
vindicate both myself and my fellow-citizens Of
New England from unfounded and INJURIOUS
imputations. In doing this, am influenced
solely by regard for truth and by respect for
the Senate of nay country.
The colony of about one hundred persons
who have recently gone to Kansas from
among us are believe, without exception,
people Of substantial and excellent character,
and of the best habits. Our community has
suffered a serious loss by their departure, but
we felt that we had no right to object to their
removal to region where they hope to establish
happy homes and to contribute to the forfna-
ton of good state OF society. We have there
fore afforded them all the assistance in Our
power, both by moral encouragement and by
material aid in money and in arms.
1t is no new thing for colonies to go out
armed. Our ancestors came from Europe to
this country in full panoply, and every colony
to the Oriental countries is furnished with arras
as necessary protection. The pioneers of the
great West bore arms from the East, with all
necessary munitions Of defence. From Marietta
to Oregon, and from the close of the American
Revolution to the present era, the same protec-
ton has in all similar cases been provided. 1t
was not merely that wild animals might be slain
for safety or for food bands of predatory and
murderous men, the original inhabitants of this
continent were to be repulsed or held aloof by
the fear of arms, welded by strong hands and
directed by courageous minds.
Is the case of the New England emigrants to
Kansas different in any essential circumstances
from those which l have named? Are not
ferocious animals to be slain, as then, Cor safety,
and harmless ones for food? And, for reasons
still more imperative, protection by arms is
equally indispensable as then, not indeed in
Kansas against the aborigines of the forest, but
against men falsely called civilized, whose nu-
merous and unprovoked assaults have been
made upon peaceful emigrants and other travel
lers, on steamers or on the land whose lawless
spolations and wanton destruction of property
and whose repeated murders have been perpe-
trated under circumstances of aggravated insult
and cruelty, while the robbers and murderers
still walk freely abroad, and justice is unaTeng-
ed not to mention the menaces of a general
massacre of q peaceful and unofending popula-
ton by an armed host under high physical ex-
element, catastrophe of guilt and infamy
which appears to have been prevented solely
by the fact that the intended victims had arms
in their hands, and had both the courage and
the skill to use them effectualy in selfdefence--
all these reasons impose upon emigrants from
the free States passing that way the absolute
commanding necessity of protection by arms.
Could ace, then, citizens IF Ne,o Haven, per-
NIT our emigrating friends to depart unarmed,
and to encounter these dangers without ade.
quate protection? In US this neglect would
have been cruel, in them suicidal. We are
assured that all persons coming to Kansas from
the South, to settle or to vote, carry arms. Can
any reason, then, be assigned why emigrants
from New England should come on in defence
less condition? If the former course is right,
the latter course cannot pc wrong, and this
will be the verdict of many good and honor
able mind in the South.
The New England emigrants regard their
arms as a defensive protection merely. The
knowledge that they are thus provided will, as
we believe, prevent the necessity of using them.
The Eastern emigrants to Kansas are in gen.
eral real settlers, who go out, as our New Haven
colony have gone, 20 improve their fortunes, to
create new and desirable homes, and to carry
into that new and beautiful region those insti-
tutions which, under God, have produced the
prosperity of their native States, the States of
New England.
The charge of reasonable designs against
the Government we Indignantly deny and repel.
This is question merely of safe emigration,
and in this movement the Government is not at
all in view, except in the act which has opened
Kansas and Nebraska to emigration from every
part of our country. The arms which are car
ried by the New England emigrants have refer
ence only to wild animals and lawless' men,
whose assaults, should, they De raade, will he
resisted but the arms will never be employed
in acts Of aggression,
There is no reason to believe that persons
from the East have ever gone to Kansas mere
" to vote and then to return to their former
homes, 1t appears omit ,ncrea,hle ,ho. NOV
saould travel fifteen hundred to two thousand
miles, with no small expense of time and money,
merely to cast a vote to carry an election. The
strong tide of emigration which is now flowing
West has for its object a permanent establish
ment in Kansas, and has not been undertaken
from any transient impulse or for fugitive
and temporary purpose. III health, disappoint-
ment, or other personal reasons, may have in
duced some of the New England emigr hts to
return but the great body of them will rSsnain
and will, trust, exhibit results, already indeed
manifest, which will confer blessings that
Western world. Those results will be s. ;ch as
uOiohS W Pcncoiui hnououJ J, ENTERPRISE, uu III
dustrial skill, appearing not only in m Aerial
prosperity, but In intellectual and mora influ-
ences, which will produce happy and fl. urish-
ing community. ] am not disposed to apollo
gize for whatever aid / may have cont buted
by action or influence to arm our en.igrant
colony, nor am / aware that the extr aeous
circumstances of time, place, and perso j.. con-
nected with the occasion, are of any seritS i'm
portance. They were, at the crisis allut ed to,
wholly accidental and unexpected; but che ex-
igency admitted not of change or delsy, and
the thing done was right. 1t is no evidence of
a good cause, when extraneous and irrAlevsnt
circumstances of little or no importance are of.
fciously paraded, to the neglect or concealment
of q real and important issue. The real issue
in the present case is whether the arming which
is conceded to persons emigrating from all