244 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



My letter is intended as a vindication of the New-England 

 emigration to Kansas. I have offered it to the " National 

 Intelligencer" for publication. It was published in that 

 paper, and republished in the "Journal of Commerce,*' in 

 the " Evening Post," the New Haven " Morning Journal," 

 and " Evening Palladium," and in the " New York Inde- 

 pendent " ; and it is pronounced in that paper to be " an 

 admirable letter." 



An extract from this letter is subjoined. 



"I am not disposed to apologize for whatever 



aid I may have contributed by action or influence to arm 

 our emigrant colony, nor am I aware that the extraneous 

 circumstances of time, place, and persons, connected with 

 the occasion, are of any serious importance. They were, at 

 the crisis alluded to, wholly accidental or unexpected ; but 

 the exigency admitted not of change or delay, and the 

 thing done was right. It is no evidence of a good cause 

 when extraneous and irrelevant circumstances, of little or 

 no importance, are officially paraded to the neglect or con- 

 cealment of a real and important issue. The real issue, in 

 the present case, is whether the arming which is conceded 

 to persons emigrating from all other parts of our country, 

 whether going to Kansas to settle or to vote, should be de- 

 nied to the emigrants from New England. May they not 

 also carry arms and munitions and all other supplies and 

 defences necessary to the settlement of a new country on 

 the very frontiers of civilization, and one of its most ex- 

 treme outposts ? Can any issue be more simple or more 

 reasonable ? Who can give any other answer than that 

 which is now being practically given by the voluntary 

 action of many thousands, moving from the most remote 

 points of our vast country, to possess the promised land ? 

 The arts of designing men, and the intemperate zeal of 

 those who have viewed the subject through a false medium, 

 have fostered prejudices and produced recriminations which 



