864 
KANSAS. 
and inalienable rights, and from unwarrantable interference of officials in 
the management of their internal affairs. It is manifestly improper for 
the federal officers to dictate into, or out of Kansas, an institution over 
which Congress professes to hare no authority. 
It is understood that the deputy marshal has private instructions to arrest 
the members of the Legislature, and the state officers, for treason, as soon 
as this address is received by you. In such an event, of course, no resist¬ 
ance will be offered to the officer. Men who are ready to defend their own 
and their country’s honor w T ith their lives, can never object to a legal inves¬ 
tigation into their actions, nor to suffer any punishment their conduct may 
merit. We should be unworthy the constituency we represent, did we shrink 
even from martyrdom on the scaffold, or at the stake, should duty require 
it. Should the blood of Collins and Low, of Barber and Brown, be insuffi¬ 
cient to quench the thirst of the President and his accomplices, in the hol¬ 
low mockery of “ squatter sovereignty ” they are practising upon the people 
of Kansas, then more victims must be furnished. Let what will come, not 
a finger should be raised against the federal authority, until there shall be 
no hope of relief but in revolution. 
The task imposed upon us is a difficult one ; but with mutual cooperation, 
and a firm reliance on His wisdom who makes “ the wrath of man praise 
him,” we may hope to inaugurate a government that shall not be unworthy 
of the country and the age in which we live. 
C. ROBINSON. 
Topeka, March 4th, 1856. 
