846 
KANSAS. 
reprove the governor — the very man after his own heart in guilty 
weakness — for his unparalleled course of oppression ? 0, no.! 
He told the peaceable settlers in Kansas, who had asked his pro¬ 
tection, that he would “ enforce the laws ” of the Legislature, 
elected by Missourians, “ with the army and navy of the United 
States.” He, moreover, intimated very strongly that treason had 
been or would be committed. 
Again and again irruptions were made into the territory. The 
ballot-boxes were taken by force ; and on the seventeenth of Jan- 
uary another murder, so terrible in all its barbarities that the 
mind shudders at the thought, was compiitted in the territory. 
The people, oppressed by cold unprecedented, and many of them 
suffering for the actual wants of life, were harassed hourly -by 
fears of the assassin. Yet the President was dumb. Spring 
came, and earth and sky rejoiced with mutual gladness in the 
balmy airs and up-springing verdure. Business revived, and the 
people hoped in some measure to retrieve their losses of the last 
fall’s invasion ; but the demon Slavery was yet insatiate. Armed 
bands from Missouri, South Carolina, and Alabama, poured into 
the territory. They openly proclaimed they came to •“ fight and 
to vote, and would return to their homes.” These things were 
known to the country. Was the President one of those who, 
“ having eyes, see not, and ears, hear not ” ? They came, and 
were enrolled as the militia of the territory — men so degraded, 
so debauched, that one of their officers in camp said “ they 
never had had so good a home as that before.” They were 
the proper instruments to do the work desired by the administra¬ 
tion —- sacking towns, robbing and murdering innocent people; 
and this they did under the orders of the United States Marshal. 
The way, they thought, was open for a general extermination of 
free-state people, because, by the orders of Judge Lecompte, a 
few of the leaders had been thrown into prison, and others 
driven off. 
Lawrence was destroyed. Osawattomie was sacked. Guer¬ 
illa bands blockaded the highways, and murdered peaceable citi¬ 
zens. Bid the President do anything? When by a word he 
could have given Kansas the long-sought-for peace, he said it not 
