POLITICAL REBELLION IN KANSAS. 283 



as a great financier. The mortgage usually contains the provisions that 

 the buildings shall be kept insured, and the taxes paid on the farm, or 

 foreclosure and eviction can be summarily enforced on the settler, leav- 

 ing him and his family, with his homestead rights to take up public land 

 gone, in a strange land without home or friends. 



How could it be possible under such a system that the rich should 

 fail to grow richer and the men of moderate means should rapidly fall 

 into the ranks of the extremely poor? Then is it any wonder that the 

 men who followed " old John Brown " into Kansas, on the principle that 

 it was wrong to rob the black man of the fruits of his toil, should rebel 

 when their own welfare is at stake ? It can easily be seen that, after 

 waiting year after year for the Republican party to come to their relief, 

 and each succeeding year seeing relief further off, and that the State 

 had fallen into the hands of the worst political crew that ever cursed 

 any country, under the domineering rule of this arrogant party, con- 

 trolled by this aristocratic ring of political office-seekers, who cared only 

 for their own advancement, forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and the 

 farmers were wise in resolving to take charge of things themselves. 

 They made the discovery that for long years they had been blinded to 

 their own interests by designing politicians, who kept alive the old war 

 issues and prejudices. They resolved to cast aside the chief apostle of 

 this doctrine of hate, John J. Ingalls, and thereby set an example to the 

 rest of the country, particularly to the South. They saw that new issues 

 would be brought to the front that were pressing for adjustment ; there- 

 fore it was time to bury the old ones. With this new declaration of 

 independence, called the " St. Louis Demands," they commenced a 

 political revolution that bids fair to sweep from one end of the country 

 to the other, and drive from place and power the men who fattened 

 upon the labor of the people. That this will be no easy task all history 

 will testify ; for the oppressor never lets go without a struggle, whether 

 he wields his power through military force, the Church, by controlling 

 money, trade, commerce, transportation, through cunningly devised 

 schemes of legislation, or by holding men in chattel slavery. All history 

 proves that this is the selfish, brutal part of the human race, which knows 

 no law but force. 



Now this rebellion in Kansas is against this principle. The people 

 have been driven to it by oppression from the moneyed class of this 

 country. They have served notice upon the politicians of the country 

 that, from this time on, the farmers of this country are going to take 

 a hand in its politics. 



