84 
KANSAS. 
after a long ride from Kansas city, through the treacherous mud 
and drenching rain. People for the convention are still gathering 
from all parts of the territory. They feel themselves a wronged 
and oppressed people. Thousands of men, from another state, 
armed with instruments of death, and maltreating our citizens, 
nave thus elected men to make our laws. They are men, for the 
most part, so ignorant, that in any other country they would not 
be considered eligible to the most unimportant office. It is stated, 
upon good authority, that some of them can neither read nor write. 
Such ignorance is not strange when we consider the fact of the scare- 
ity of schools through the border counties of Missouri — one of the 
most populous boasting only one within its entire limits. Such des¬ 
titution is one of slavery’s trophies. While the Richmond En¬ 
quirer comes out in wordy tirades upon common schools, why 
should Western Missouri do more than feed the brutal passions, 
leaving the mind uncultivated and rough as the shores of her great 
river ? 
These men have enacted laws worthy alone of the dark ages. 
Those of Draco were humane in the comparison, and Nero’s blood¬ 
thirstiness is transformed into the milk of human kindness before 
this new light of the nineteenth century. We have looked to 
him who has sworn to protect the whole people, the executive of 
the nation. We might sooner look to the granite hills of his own 
state with hope of sympathy; for, given over to the minions of 
slavery, to do their bidding, no thunders save those of a long out¬ 
raged, indignant people will ever awaken him. 
14 th. — Twelve strangers dined with us to-day. They came 
from one hundred miles back in the territory, and there, as here, 
they represent the feeling of the people strong against these un¬ 
heard-of outrages and frauds. We are struggling for our own 
freedom against a tyranny more unjust than that which King 
George exercised over the colonies. Though a war, a conflict like 
that even of seven years’ duration, be the result of it, the end, 
bringing in the glorious reign of freedom, will be a final triumph. 
These gentlemen speak of the good appearance of the crops. 
Corn near the river called the Big Blue is very high. Some of 
the stalks measure eighteen feet and some inches. 
