Veni Vidi Vici!
Free White State Party used up.
“The triumph of the pro-slavery party is complete and overwhelming. Come on, Southern men; bring your slaves and fill up the territory. Kansas is Saved! Abolitionism is rebuked. Her fortress stormed. Her flag is dragging in the dust. The tri-colored platform has fallen with a crash. The rotten timbers of its structure were not sufficient to sustain the small fragments of the party.”
The Parkville Luminary which was published in Platte county, Missouri, very mildly protested against the manner of carrying the election and spoke in friendly terms of the Free Soil settlers. The following week its office and place was destroyed by a mob and forced its editors to flee the country for their lives.
The election of November 29, 1854, so incensed the Anti-Slavery element that the Free State movement was given a great impetus. A convention of Free State men at Lawrence June 8, 1855, and the Big Springs convention September 5, 1855, were the result, and from that date many other public meetings of Free State men followed. The Free State sentiment fully crystalized itself in the momentous election of October 9, 1855, following eight days after the date set by the pro-slavery legislature for an election of delegate to Congress to succeed J. W. Whitfield, who had been elected the year before. The first election in 1855 was held October 1 but was participated in only by pro-slavery men. The abstract of the poll books showed that 2,738 votes were cast in the territory and Whitfield received 2,721, of which it is only fair to say that 857 were declared illegal. In the Free State election Ex-Governor Andrew H. Reeder received 2,849 votes, of which 101 were cast in Atchison county. On the same day an election for delegates to a constitutional convention to be held at Topeka took place and R. H. Crosby, a merchant of Oceana, Atchison county, and Caleb May, a farmer, near the same place, were elected delegates.
The returns of the pro-slavery election having been made according to law, the governor granted the certificate of election to Whitfield, who returned to Washington as the duly elected delegate from Kansas. The territorial executive committee, elected at the Big Springs convention, gave a certificate of election to Reeder. The Topeka constitutional convention subsequently convened October 23, 1855, and was in session until November 11. This body of Free State men framed a constitution, and among other things memorialized Congress to admit Kansas as a State. It was understood by all that the validity of the work of the convention was contingent upon the admission of Kansas as a State. Meanwhile the executive committee of Kansas Territory appointed at the Topeka primary, September 19, 1855, under the leadership of James H. Lane, continued to direct and inspire the work for a State government.
As a counter-irritant to the activities of the Free State men, and for the purpose of allaying the insane excitement of the territorial legislature, the pro-slavery followers organized a Law and Order party, which was pledged to the establishment of slavery in Kansas. From thenceforth it was open warfare between the two great forces contending for supremacy in the territory. Atchison was the stronghold of the Law and Order party, as Lawrence was the stronghold of the Free State party. The Free State party was looked upon by the Law and Order advocates as made up of revolutionists and the Law and Order party was determined to bring them to time as soon as possible, but as the members of the Free State party held themselves apart from the legal machinery devised for the government of the territory, bringing no suits in its courts; attending no elections; paying no attention to its county organizations; offering no estates to its probate judges, and paying no tax levies made by authority of the legislature, they were careful to commit no act which would lay themselves liable to the laws which they abhorred. They settled all their disputes by arbitration in order to avoid litigation, but as they could build, manufacture, buy and sell and establish schools and churches without coming under the domination of the pro-slavery forces, they managed to do tolerably well. Where the inhabitants were mostly Free State, as in Lawrence and Topeka, conditions were reasonably satisfactory, but in localities like Atchison and Leavenworth, where the Law and Order party dominated affairs, the Free State inhabitants were forced to suffer many indignities and insults.
During the month of August, 1855, a negro woman belonging to Grafton Thomassen, who ran a sawmill in Atchison, was found drowned in the Missouri river. J. W. B. Kelley, a rabid anti-slavery lawyer, from Cincinnati, who became a resident of Atchison, expressed the opinion that if Thomassen’s negro woman had been treated better by her master she would not have committed suicide by jumping into the river. Thomassen was greatly angered at this personal illusion and deluded himself into believing that if he satisfied his own vengeance he would at the same time be rendering the pro-slavery party a service. He therefore picked a quarrel with Kelley and they came to blows, after which Thomassen’s conduct was sustained by a largo meeting of Atchison people. While it is said that Thomassen was a larger and more powerful man than Kelley, the people did not consider this fact, but rather considered the principle involved, and as a result they commended the act in the following resolution:
“1. Resolved. That one J. W. B. Kelley, hailing from Cincinnati, having upon sundry occasions denounced our institutions and declared all pro-slavery men ruffians, we deem it an act of kindness and hereby command him to leave the town of Atchison one hour after being informed of the passage of this resolution never more to show himself in this vicinity.
2. Resolved. That in case he fails to obey this reasonable command, we inflict upon him such punishment as the nature of the case may require.