Washington telegraph., 1856-09-17
The War in Kansas.

The simultaneous outbreak of hostilitie:
In so many places in Kansas Territory
leaves little doubt that they have been pre-
concerted; and the time and circumstan
ces connect them closely with the move
ments of the Black Republicans in Con
gress- They are all commenced by the
free State men, as they call themselves
whose true designation is Abolitienists,
and they were timed so as to be put into
execution, as part of the Republican plan
of the campaign, just when Congress was
expected to adjourn, and when the defeat
of the army bill, settled in advance, was
arranged to deprive the Government of all
means of coercion. The House proviso to
the army appropriation has thus an evident
connection with the invasion of Kansas bv
Lane and his men engaged by the Eastern
AbolltlOnlsts, and armed for the purpose
of subduing it with the sword, and estab
llshing abolitionism by the right of con-
quest. The men were recruited, armed,
and sent forward, and waiting for the mo-
ment when their patrons in Congress were
to provide immunity for them by disarm-
ing the executive of the power of employ
ing force in support of the laws, or arrest
ing the exercise of that power, by stopping
the supplies and disbanding or starving the
army. The collusion is a matter of ire
sistible deduction from the facts, and the
avowals of the party favorites of the grand
scheme of action. They looked by this
plot to overrun Kansas and expel their op-
ponents, and by force of the majority in
one House of Congress to prevent ali in
terposition by the Federal Government to
sustain the violated laws, and protect the
asssailed settlers
The details which have reached us are
obscure in many respects and contradicto-
~ In others, and they are mostly derived
from sources friendly to the free State par
tzans, such rs the St. Louis Democrat and
the Chicago telegraphs. But they show
very plainly, as is carefully shown in the
New York Journal of Commerce, that the
free State men, in every case that has been
heard OF, were the attacking party. The
enumeration of the various engagements
reported from these sources proves this
fact beyond question. Their own des-
patches say that the attack on Franklin
took place about midnight, on the night of
the 1lth or 18th inst, and was made by
200 men, according to the dispatches,
while 1.-The pro-slavery party numbered
about twenty" About the same time, a
party of Southerners, ON their way from
St Louis to Lecompton, were attacked in
Kansas by party of Free Soilers Seye-
raj were killed on both sides. About the
same time, colony of GeOrgians, near
Ossawatomie, in Kansas, was attacked by
800 Free Soilers under Brown, and burnt,
and the colonists, except such as were Kill
led, were driven into Missouri
On the 10Th inst, the Tredwell settle
ment was attacked by 400 Free Soilers-
result not stated.
On the 14th, fight occurred near Os-
sawatomie, between 200 Free Soilers and
twelve pro-slavery men-the latter in a
fort OF course the Free Soilers made the
attack. wenty-three Free Soilers were
killed or wounded. This may be the same
affair mentioned above.
On the 10th Lecompton was attacked by
800 of Lanes men. So the account reads
The United States troops having in charge
Robinson, Brown and others, surrendered
without firing gun. =
Here, according to these statements of
AbOlitionists, the pro-slavery men, always
inferior in numbers and occupying de-
fensive position, were attacked by free
State men, disarmed, expelled or murder
ed, and in no case were they the assailants
The were few in number, and taken by
surprise by hordes of strangers, invading
the Territory from abroad, and under the
name of emigrants commencing their ca
reer in the Territory by general assault
upon the supporters of the Territorial Gov
ernment, and general crusade of rapine
and murder All this is justified in the
Eastern journals upon the plea that it is a
right of revolution, justified by the duty of
expelling slavery and Shareholders from the
Territory duty which the New York
Tribune, and its associate journals, dema-
gOgues and factionists, class with that
which prompted and exalts the war of In
dependence. The absurd pretence set up
by some of the less audacious among them,
that this cor cealed irruption upon the
Territory, and The simultaneous attack up
on the pro-slavery settlements, is merely
in defence, against plot of the Southern
men to rise against the Abolitionists, is
discarded or disregarded by the bolder-spo-
ken of the preachers and writers on that
side All these measures are approved
and justified, from the inroad of Lanes
ruffians to the '.open connivance of their
abettors in Congress" as acts righteous in
their defiance of laws and authority as
those at Bunker Hill or Charleston harbor-
They are not only acknowledged to be ci-
vii war, but gloried in as revolution
Such is the undoubted character of these
transactions in Kansas and at Washington
City, which are coming to us by every
mail
In Kansas frantic abolitionism seems to
have been triumphant in the first onset,
and to have defeated the Southern men,
scattered and surprised by superior num-
bers; but this is actually only temporary
advantage gained by suddenness and con-
cert. If the matter is to be brought to