268 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



as desperate ; on the contrary, the friends of liberty appear 

 more determined than ever. Mr. Webster, several years 

 ago, warned the South to beware how they roused the 

 Northern conscience. It is now aroused, and, I believe, 

 will not sleep again. The spirit of slavery has appeared so 

 aggressive, insulting, and cruel, that no measures can be 

 kept with it. It must be kept where it is ; and the great 

 struggle is maintained, with more decision than ever, to 

 protect Kansas. We have not sent in armies, but we have 

 clothed the naked and fed the hungry. Many hundreds 

 of boxes and barrels of clothing have been forwarded, 

 chiefly by the benevolent exertions of our women, and to a 

 great extent by the work of their hands ; while men, both 

 individuals and associations, have contributed large sums 

 of money to purchase food.* It was a part of the policy 

 of the savage invaders to prevent cultivation and to destroy 

 every resource, so that the free settlers might either per 

 ish from want, their houses having been burned and 

 property plundered, or be compelled, as many have 

 been, to leave the territory. The Southern ruffians have 

 chiefly gone south, and some bands of them to join Walker 

 in his piratical enterprise against an unoffending people. 

 The new Governor of Kansas, Geary, has sent the Mis- 

 sourians home, and has procured the dismissal of the in 

 famous Judge Lecompte, surnamed Jeffries, and his min 

 ions. In the meantime, even now, in winter, emigrants 

 from the Free States are going into Kansas, and many 

 thousands more, we are assured, will follow early in the 

 spring ; and not a few of the pro-slavery men become con 

 verts to freedom when they have planted themselves in the 

 territory. In the meantime, the deep-toned underswell of 

 servile insurrection, growing out of the discussions regard- 



* The Vermont government have given $20,000 ; the New York Tribune 

 has collected $20,000 more; the Boston Boot and Shoe Makers $20,000 

 more ; and many smaller sums in hundreds as well as thousands have been 

 forwarded. 



