Lxxiii.
The catalogue is not yet complete. On the 15th of December, when the people assembled to vote on the Constitution submitted for adoption, only a few days after the Treaty of Peace between the Governor on the one side and the town of Lawrence on the other, another and fifth irruption was made. But I leave all this untold. Enough of these details has been given.Five several times and more have these invaders entered Kansas in armed array, and thus five several times and more have they trampled upon the organic law of the Territory. These extraordinary expeditions are simply the extraordinary witnesses to successive, uninterrupted violence. They stand out conspicuous, but not alone. The spirit of evil, in which they had their origin, is wakeful and incessant. From the beginning it hung upon the skirts of this interesting Territory, harrowing its peace, disturbing its prosperity, and keeping its inhabitants under the painful alarms of war. All security of person, property, and labor was overthrown; and when I urge this incontrovertible fact, I set forth [279] a wrong which is small only by the side of the giant wrong for the consummation of which all this is done. Sir, what is man, what is government, without security, in the absence of which nor man nor government can proceed in development or enjoy the fruits of existence? Without security civilization is cramped and dwarfed. Without security there is no true Freedom. Nor shall I say too much, when I declare that security, guarded of course by its parent Freedom, is the true end and aim of government. Of this indispensable boon the people of Kansas are despoiled,—absolutely, totally. All this is aggravated by the nature of their pursuits, rendering them peculiarly sensitive to interruption, and at the same time attesting their innocence. They are for the most part engaged in the cultivation of the soil, which from time immemorial has been the sweet employment of undisturbed industry. Contented in the returns of bounteous Nature and the shade of his own trees, the husbandman is not aggressive; accustomed to produce, and not to destroy, he is essentially peaceful, unless his home is invaded, when his arm derives vigor from the soil he treads, and his soul inspiration from the heavens beneath whose canopy he daily toils. Such are the people of Kansas, whose security has been overthrown. Scenes from which Civilization averts her countenance are part of their daily life. Border incursions, which in barbarous ages or barbarous lands fretted and harried an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, like those who acted under the inspiration of the Douglas of other days,—they do not seize a few persons, and sweep them away into captivity, like the African slave-traders, whom we brand as pirates, —but they commit a succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are revived together on American soil, while, for the time being, all protection is annulled, and the whole Territory is enslaved.
