258 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



contained false aspersions upon the great majority of 

 the actual inhabitants of Kansas, whom it stigma- 

 tized as lawless and seditious people. It also con- 

 tained a fling at the Hartford Convention, although 

 some of the signers of the memorial were old enough 

 to remember that in the days of the Hartford Con- 

 vention, Mr. Buchanan was himself a federalist. 

 How the right of the South to carry slavery into the 

 territories could ever have been doubted, the letter 

 declared " a mystery " ! Both the acts of this mag- 

 istrate in respect to Kansas, and the manner in which 

 he defended them, moved the indignation of Pro- 

 fessor Silliman. And who, at this distance of time, 

 can read the history of the efforts made to force slav- 

 ery upon an unwilling people, without mingled in- 

 dignation and shame, that such a chapter should 

 deface our national annals ? 



The annexed extracts are from the Diary. 



Buchanan. In July, a brief but pointed and respectful 

 remonstrance was signed by forty-three gentlemen of New 

 Haven, and a few from other parts of Connecticut, and 

 forwarded to President Buchanan, the object being to pro- 

 test against the employment of troops of the United States, 

 in order to enforce against the people of Kansas, the cruel 

 and wicked code of laws inflicted upon them by an inva- 

 sion from Missouri, creating a false and unauthorized legis- 

 lature. After some weeks the President replied in a smooth, 

 plausible letter, written as a text for his party, and as an 

 olH-riug for the South; but he entirely evaded the point at 

 issue. :uul at the same time avowed the most ultra pro-slav- 

 ery doctrines. Several weeks more elapsed ; meetings were 

 held by many of the signers, and several replies to the Pres- 

 ident were written, one by Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, an- 

 other by Alex. C. Twining, Esq., (the author of the protest,) 



