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502
CLEVELAND NEWSPAPER DIGEST JAN. 1 TO DEC. 31, 1856
Abstracts 3736 - 3739
UNITED STATES TERRITORIES & POSSESSIONS (Cont'd)
bel ieves that two thirds of the bona-fide settlers are free state men.
Free state men do not recognize tile laws passed by the fraudulently elected
Legislature as binding unless they are forced to do so. Pro-slavery
men are straining every nerve to change the majority of actual settlers.
If people in Kansas are permitted to determine its institutions it will
be free. If poor men want to be in comfortable circumstances, Kansas is
the place for them." (2)
3736 - L May 24; ed:2/2 - The Kansas correspondent of the Chicago TRIBUNE
gives a pretty gloomy picture of affairs in that territory. He states
that Governor Shannon has distributed muskets to all Southern invaders.
Now the whole thing is coming to I ight. The muskets were sent there
to arm the cut throats. Do we owe any further allegiance to such a
government?
If we once establish the precedent that our chief magislrate cannot
with impunity violate the constitution, there will be an end to these
things. (4)
3737 - L May 24; ed:2l1 - Joseph L. Speer, former Kansas TRIBUNE editor,
is now in this city. He and S. N. Woods left Lawrence at the same time
and were to meet again at a certain 'Joint in Illinois. Woods took the
most direct course, but nothing has been heard from him since.
It is feared that he has fallen into the hands of the Missouri cutthroats.
In that event his fate is already sealed. (2)
3738 - L May 27; ed:2/1 - Lawrence is in ashes and its inhabitants may
even now be smouldering in the ruins.
The bloody scoundrels who brought desolation and death upon that
peaceful community now shake their defiant arms at you and at the bleeding
and muti lated form of 1 iberty which 1 ies in the dust before them.
Fresh hordes of cutthroats will flock in, and the flame of civil war will,
perhaps, sweep all over Kansas and Missouri, but we must do our duty; let
come what may. If slavery seeks a bloody death, the blood be upon its
own head. (7)
3739 - L May 28; ed: 2/2 - There are but few men in the North who talk
about settling the difficulties in Kansas by referring them to the court
of law in Kansas or to the U. S. Supreme court.
Alas, there is no hope for justice in either: Six of the nine judges
of the Supreme court are leagued with the cutthroats, bound to them by a
tie stronger than their feeble consciences, standing ready at ii moments
notice, to decide that the butchered free state men were insurgents.
There is no hope for justice there. The courts of justice give decisions
which would excite c:mazement on board a ship of pirates.
Let us at once lay aside all hopes of a peaceful settlement of our
difficulties. Now what is our duty? We answer, to fight. And who shall
we fight with? Even with those whose hands are dripping with the blood